


Hound

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, BAMF John Watson, Bearskin Rug, Book: The Hound of the Baskervilles, But Everybody Knows the Case, Case Fic, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Tarantula - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:25:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 26,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8038537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: A re-telling of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Mostly gen/teen rating but there are three smut chapters labelled 'interludes.'





	1. Mr. Sherlock Holmes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a walking stick deduction is a joint affair, skulls are coveted, and a dog named Watson is introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the month of September, I conducted a _Hound of the Baskervilles_ festival, enjoying as many version of the famous tale as possible. This work is an unholy amalgamation of my favourite bits. In this chapter, you'll find references to both the [Lenfilm version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8fSqg69vr4%22) and the [Granada version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fN55m_6H8M&list=PL30BCA131E5D2C3D5) as well as the original canon text and my own thoughts. I hope you enjoy.

“Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”

“How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head, Holmes.”

“My dear man, if you read my monograph on the perceptive organs of detectives, you would know that I have special receptors at the tops of my ears.”

Mrs. Hudson passed between us, carrying a tray of breakfast things. “He can see your reflection in the silver coffee pot, Doctor.”

Holmes dissolved into impish giggles, an utterly charming sight, and there was nothing for it but to join him. Even Mrs. Hudson was smiling as she left the room.

When the laughter subsided, Holmes inquired anew. “But tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s stick? Since we’ve been so unfortunate as to have missed him last night and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance.”

“Well, he left his stick and no card.”

“After waiting an hour. Absent-minded.”

“Iron ferrule’s worn down so he does a lot of walking. M.R.C.S. A professional brother of mine.”

“Put them together.”

“Country practitioner.”

“Well done. A young man?”

“Or an unusually spry older one. We know his name, James Mortimer from the engraving, and he must be amiable for he was presented this stick as a token of esteem. ‘From his friends of the C.C.H’ it says on the silver band just under the head. Now, C.C.H. could mean—“

“He’s a medical man, Watson, so the H is more than likely—“

“Hospital.”

Holmes nodded. Then we spoke in unison.

“Charing Cross.”

“And what do you make of these marks?” Holmes took the stick from me and pointed to the centre of the staff.

I frowned. “Something’s gnawed it.”

Holmes tilted his head towards me. “My conductor of light,” he cooed, then his expression became more resolute and he urged, “Think!”

I blew out a noise of frustration. “A hint?”

Holmes barked, then clasped the stick between his teeth.

“A dog!” I cried.

“Larger than a terrier, smaller than a mastiff.”

“Hmm. Reminds me of a sailor I once knew. His walking around stick was about the same size, and, like this one, must have been handsome at one point, but by the time it arrived in _my_ hands was so knocked about that—“

Holmes shot me a cold look. “Silence! Or you will put me quite off my breakfast. And my deduction. So our visitor withdrew from service here in London and went to the country to set up his own practice. Unambitious.”

“Perhaps. But there is one thing that might make a young man—or even a spry old one—forego a step up in his career.”

Our eyes met.

“A woman,” said Holmes.

I nodded and squeezed the top of his shoulder affectionately. “Or possibly another type of family business. Death of a father? Needed around the homestead?”

Holmes rose and began to pace with the stick under his arm.

“Let’s see if we are right,” I said, reaching for a large book on the bookshelf. “But the Medical Directory, thorough though it is, will not reveal the man’s choice of canine companion.”

Holmes grunted by way of reply and continued pacing.

I had just found our visitor’s name when his voice rang out.

“By Jove, it _is_ a curly-haired spaniel. And a handsome one at that.”

“What?”

“Our visitor has returned,” said Holmes gazing out the window. Then he turned and waved toward the door. “Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill!”

“Good Lord. And you call _me_ florid.”

Ignoring my grumbling, Holmes called out, “What does James Mortimer, the man of medicine, ask of Sherlock Holmes, the specialist in crime?! Come in!”

I walked to the door. “Perhaps I should greet him first, lest the professional be put off by amateur theatrics.”

* * *

“Doctor Mortimer,” said Holmes. He then immediately turned his attention to the brown-haired spaniel who seemed to be as joyful at making Holmes’s acquaintance as his owner was at the return of his walking stick.

“I am so very glad,” said Doctor Mortimer. “I was not sure whether I had left it here or at the Shipping Office. A presentation from Charing Cross Hospital from friends on the occasion of my marriage.”

I looked at Holmes and smiled. Holmes looked the spaniel, whose front paws were now braced on his thigh, and smiled. Doctor Mortimer looked, as I was to realise in a moment, at Holmes’s head and smiled.

“You interest me very much, Mister Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure?”

Holmes stopped petting the dog to raise a halting hand. “Please! Doctor Mortimer!” he said sternly, but his eyes were lit with amusement.

Doctor Mortimer continued, “A cast of your skull, sir, until the original becomes available.”

Holmes burst out laughing. He glanced at me, and I laughed, too. Even the dog seemed to appreciate the humour of the moment as he raced back and forth from his master to Holmes, yipping.

“It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess I covet your skull, Mister Holmes.”

Holmes was still laughing, but my sentiment cooled. I am by no means critical of eccentric passions. In an unused portion of the lumber room, Holmes himself has two shelves’ worth of ears floating in jars of preservative. But passions may overwhelm reason so I stepped closer to Holmes and gave Doctor Mortimer what I hoped was a warning glance. No one was to be coveting my friend’s skull too keenly. Not on my watch.

Holmes had had enough as well. “Sit down, Doctor Mortimer, and behave,” he ordered and waved to the empty chair.

As he sat, Doctor Mortimer whispered, “Sit down, Watson.”

Until now I had been standing by the fire. I blinked and was about to object to being commanded by a guest when I realised the doctor’s words were not addressed to me. The dog fled Holmes and hopped up onto the chair, tucking itself neatly beside its master.

“Yes, good boy, Watson,” said Doctor Mortimer.

My eyes widened and I looked at Holmes, who was barely stifling new laughter when he said, “I must commend you, Doctor Mortimer, on your choice of cherished companion.” A smiled twitched at his lips. “Handsome and, no doubt, loyal and brave and thus aptly-named.”

I felt warmth rise in my cheeks.

“Oh, Doctor Watson, I trust that I have not inadvertently—“

“Just a bit,” teased Holmes.

“Not at all,” I reassured our visitor, but I was eager to change the subject. “But was it your phrenological passion that drew you to Baker Street?”

“Unfortunately it was not, sir. I am suddenly confronted with a most serious and extraordinary problem. Recognising as I do that you are the second highest expert in London—”

“Indeed, sir!” exclaimed Holmes with asperity.

“Who is the first?” I inquired, imitating Holmes’s mischievous tone of earlier.

“To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must appeal strongly.”

“Then consult him!” Holmes turned away with a huff.

“Oh, no. Have I once again—?” asked Doctor Mortimer, looking at me with furrowed brow.

“Just a bit,” I said.

Then suddenly, the dog leapt from its perch, crossed the space to Holmes, and licked his hand. Holmes melted at the gesture and turned back. His voice was firm but warm when he spoke.

“Without more ado, Doctor Mortimer, kindly tell me plainly and precisely what the exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance."


	2. The Curse of the Baskervilles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the public and private facts of the case (and the little affair of the Vatican cameos) are revealed.
> 
> A short chapter.

“And now Doctor Mortimer—“ began Holmes.

“I was remiss in not correcting you earlier, sir. It is Mister, sir, Mister, a humble M.R.C.S. I am a dabbler in science—“

“As am I,” interjected Holmes.

“—a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean.”

“That, I believe, is more Watson’s line,” said Holmes dryly.

I shrugged. “More ‘ports of call’ than shores, but there was one time in Tahiti—“

Holmes silenced me with a cold look, then spoke swiftly. “Does that 1730 manuscript in your pocket have anything to do with the matter, Doctor Mortimer?”

“Yes, it describes the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles.”

“I am not a collector of fairy-tales, sir.”

“The legend has direct bearing on the modern, indeed, the very pressing problem that has brought me to seek your services, Mister Holmes. Shall I read it?”

“Quickly.”

* * *

“A grim tale,” I remarked when our visitor had returned the manuscript to his pocket.

“And one that relates to the death of Sir Charles Baskerville this past June. These,” he withdrew a newspaper clipping from the same pocket. “are the public facts.”

“A summary, if you will, Doctor,” said Holmes.

“Sir Charles Baskerville made his fortune in South African speculation and took up residence two years ago at Baskerville Hall in Dartmoor. He was a widower, childless, and of a charitable, but retiring nature. Only the Barrymores, a couple acting as butler and housekeeper, lived at the Hall with him. As his medical attendant, I can attest that Sir Charles had a weak heart. On the night of his death, he took a walk down the famous Yew Alley of Baskerville Hall as was his custom every night. His body was found after mid-night by Barrymore at the far end of the Alley. Sir Charles’s face displayed almost incredible facial distortion, but there were no marks of violence on the body itself. There was evidence that Sir Charles had stood at the gate that leads onto the moor—which is halfway down the Alley—for some time, then walked on tiptoe until he met his end. The coroner jury returned a verdict that he died of natural causes.”

“Though I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting cases. Thank you for bringing the incident to my attention,” said Holmes.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Holmes and I had spent June traveling in Italy. A few trifling cases, yes, but it was principally a pleasure tour. Given the frequency with which the walls of our Tuscan villa were witness to Holmes calling out to an unnamed deity, however, it might well have been confused with the Holy See. And there was a Venetian lace-trimmed _camisole_ involved, along with corset and stockings, so, once again, his slip of the tongue is more than understandable.

Holmes kept his countenance even and his gaze fixed on our visitor. “You have shared the public facts, Doctor Mortimer, now, please be so good as to share the private ones.”

“I saw a good deal of Sir Charles. With the exception of Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, there are no other men of education within many miles. Sir Charles had brought back much scientific information from South Africa, and many a charming evening we spent together discussing the comparative anatomy of tribes.”

I opened my mouth to interject but shut it at Holmes’s halting hand raised in my direction. “Please come to the point, Doctor Mortimer.”

“I did not reveal all I know at the inquest. Sir Charles took the legend to heart and was very much grieved by it. In the weeks before his death, he would often ask me if I had seen any strange creature on the moor or heard the baying of a hound. These thoughts plagued him to the point that I recommended he remove himself to London to avoid further aggravation of his cardiac condition. He agreed to this and was planning his departure on the night he died. Barrymore sent Perkins the groom to alert me to the horrible finding and I reached Baskerville Hall within an hour of the event. Everything was as the inquest said, but for one fact. Barrymore said there were no traces upon the ground ‘round the body. I spied some footprints a little distance off, but fresh and clear.”

Holmes and I both leaned in towards our visitor. He asked,

“A man’s or a woman’s footprints?”

Dr. Mortimer’s voice sank to a whisper.

_“Mister Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”_


	3. The Problem (part 1 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Doctor Mortimer describes footprints and the cost of a new hearthrug is added to the rent at 221B.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter but I am setting up for a 'Watson at the bath' chapter next.

_“Mister Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”_

I shuddered. They seemed to be words that had, and would, echo down through the ages. Even Holmes’s eyes were lit with keen interest.

Doctor Mortimer continued. “The marks were some twenty yards from the body, but did not actually approach it.”

“A sheep-dog?” suggested Holmes.

Doctor Mortimer shook his head. “Far too large."

"What sort of night was it?"

"Damp and raw, but not actually raining.”

"What is the Alley like?"

"There are two lines of old yew hedge, twelve feet high and impenetrable. The walk in the centre is about eight feet across. There is a strip of grass about six feet broad on either side. The hedge is penetrated by the wicket-gate which leads on to the moor. No other opening exists.”

“So that to reach the Yew Alley one either has to come down it from the house or else to enter it by the moor-gate?”

“There is an exit through a summer-house at the far end.”

“Had Sir Charles reached this?”

“No. He lay about fifty yards from it.”

“The footprints which you saw were on the path?”

“No marks could show on the grass. The marks were on the same side of the path as the moor-gate. The wicket-gate, about four feet high, was closed and padlocked. No marks of note were on the gate itself, but Sir Charles had evidently stood there for five or ten minutes because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.”

“Excellent!” cried Holmes. “Oh, if only I had been there!”

“There is a realm in which the greatest of detectives is helpless, Mister Holmes. Before the terrible event occurred three people, including hard-headed countrymen, had seen a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this Baskerville demon, huge, luminous, ghastly, spectral. There is a reign of terror in the district, and no one will cross the moor at night. Curiously, however, none have seen the hound since Sir Charles’s death.”

“If you believe the cause of Sir Charles’s death to be supernatural, at the agency of this diabolical hound of legend, then why consult me?” asked Holmes.

“I seek your advise on what I should do with the heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who arrives at Waterloo Station in one hour and a quarter.”

“There was no other claimant?”

“None. There were three brothers, with Sir Charles being the eldest. The second brother, who died young, is the father of Sir Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black sheep of the family and, they tell me, the very image of old Hugo Baskerville, the villain of the legend. Rodger fled to Central America and died there in 1876 of yellow fever. Henry is the last of the line; he was found farming in Canada. Now, Mister Holmes, what would you advise me to do with him?”

“Meet him and take him to his home,” said Holmes plainly.

“But what about the curse?”

“Evil works in London as easily as in Devonshire. A devil with local powers like a parish vestry?” Holmes snorted.

Doctor Mortimer looked so dejected that I glared at Holmes for his flippancy.

He met my gaze, then sighed. “At ten o’clock to-morrow, Dr. Mortimer, call upon me here with Sir Henry. I will have a more thoughtful plan then.”

I smiled, and Holmes shot me a hard look that was belied by the mischievous twitch of one corner of his mouth.

“I will do so, Mr. Holmes. And thank you. Thank you, Doctor Watson.”

Doctor Mortimer rose.

“Oh, Doctor Mortimer?” said Holmes.

“Yes?”

“Please call your Watson off our hearthrug.”

I looked and gasped. Sometime during our conversation, the dog had dropped from its perch and proceeded to tear our—admittedly threadbare and much worn—rug to shreds. The curly-haired offender was sitting happily atop a pile of the evidence of his crime, looking up cheerily at us.

Doctor Mortimer turned red and began to stammer. “Oh my goodness, Mister Holmes, Doctor Watson, what can I say—?”

Holmes rose and gave Doctor Mortimer a pat on the back as he ushered him to the door. “Put it out of your mind. Watsons are notoriously difficult to bring to heel.”

I stared at the other Watson and pointed. “Go!” I ordered. “And take this with you.” I put the now twice left-behind walking stick between his jaws. He gave an unapologetic yip and dutifully followed his master out the door.

* * *

When the door closed, Holmes turned with a grin on his face.

“It’s thinking time, is it?” I said. “You’ve a new puzzle.”

He nodded.

“When you pass Bradley’s, would you ask him to send up a pound of the strongest shag tobacco? And fair warning, the atmosphere could be a bit thick when you return. You could perhaps spend the day at your club. This evening I should be glad to compare impressions on this singular problem.”

“You mean how much Mrs. Hudson is going to increase because of that?” I gestured to what was left of the rug.

Holmes look ruefully at the damage, then snorted. “ _That_ is no mystery.”

“So my club?”

Holmes’s voice fell to a whisper. “Or your bath, if you prefer as I shall be occupied, thinking and smoking, and both heavily.”

I raised an eyebrow, but like my four-footed namesake, did as I was bid and left 221B for the day.


	4. Interlude: Watson at the Bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Watson finds release and wisdom at the Bath. 
> 
> (Rating: Teen for handjob and the violence related to the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, neither mentions are very graphic, in my opinion)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Watson receiving a massage and handjob from someone other than Holmes is not your cup of tea, skip this chapter. I ship Watson with the bootlacer at the Turkish bath that is mentioned in "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax." Also in this chapter, we get the legend of the hound, which was omitted earlier. It mentions kidnapping, imprisonment, intended sexual assault, and death of the yeoman's daughter and the death of Sir Hugo at the jaws of the hound.

_“Or your bath, if you prefer as I shall be occupied, thinking and smoking, and both heavily.”_

The casual eavesdropper may not have grasp the full import of Holmes’s statement.

Essentially, he was saying ‘feel free to indulge, for I shall.’

Holmes’s vice was tobacco. As thinking aides, or vices, for that matter, go, I much preferred it to cocaine or morphine, so I made no objection to his heavy use. I had shared his proclivity, in fact, until a few weeks earlier when hacking cough had laid me so low that I had, with Holmes’s worried encouragement, ceased smoking altogether for a time. The resulting improvement in my breathing and general well-being had made me leery of resurrecting my habit at its former intensity. Oh, yes, I still smoked the rare cigarette--Bradley, Oxford Street, was my brand of choice—when any wait was especially prolonged, but my pipe was gathering dust amidst a jumble of books, like an old doll or a discarded lover.

‘Your bath,’ not ‘our bath’ signaled my vice. The Turkish bath that Holmes and I frequented together was on Northumberland Avenue. The one that visited alone was at a different address. I had a special fondness for an attendant, a masseur, who worked there, and it was before him that I lay prone on the padded table, resembling nothing so much as a lump of unkneaded dough.

As his fingers went to work on my knotted flesh, my thoughts wandered, from London to Dartmoor, and from the present to the distant past.

To the time of the Great Rebellion.

I saw the wild, profane, godless Hugo Baskerville. I saw he and his wicked companions carry off the yeoman’s daughter who had spurned his advances. I saw him imprison her in an upper chamber while he and his mates caroused downstairs. I saw the maiden escape via a lattice of ivy and flee across the moor. I saw old Hugo fly into a rage when he discovered his captive gone. I saw him gather his drunken mob and his hounds, and mount his steed in pursuit of her.

The darkness fell.

I felt a pinch on my thigh. I grunted.

“Turn over.”

I obliged. Then my one hand was in his two, and a healing touch was crawling slowly, but firmly, up my arm.

I sighed.

Then I saw the maiden, dead of fear and fatigue, and near her body, that of Sir Hugo.

Then I saw the hound.

The enormous beast tore at the throat of Sir Hugo, then turned his blazing eyes and dripping jaws on me. Blood chilled in my veins. The hound snarled and bared its teeth.

And lunged.

“Argh!” I cried

“Doctor!”

Soft, dark eyes met mine. Palms rested on my thighs.

“Shall I continue?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, please,” I whispered.

When he took my prick in his hands, I was at the gate, looking out onto the moor, flicking my cigar once, then twice, stomping my feet impatiently.

Then I heard something. Saw something.

A howl. A glow.

No, it couldn’t be, not my fear—as dark as the forsaken land that surrounded me—manifest before my very eyes.

It was.

_The hound!_

I ran.

My heart beat like a drum. Faster. Faster.                     

The beast’s breath tickled my neck. Growl became roar.

“Argh!”

Still panting, I opened my eyes, bent chin to chest, and watched a warm flannel clean all trace of my release from my skin.

* * *

I studied his dark head as he laced my boots.

He rose.

“Thank you, Abû Tabâh,” I said.

He pocketed half of the amount I offered and pushed the other half back at me.

“Your body was mine, Doctor, but your mind, it was not. Bring all of you next time or I shall be otherwise occupied and you shall be forced to find comfort in my one-eyed, pock-marked, four-fingered spider of a cousin.”

I nodded ruefully. “I was in Dartmoor.”

“With your _other_ problem-solver.” The tone was one of mild disdain.

I shook my head. “With a problem. Of a dog.”

He smiled and shook his head. “There are no problems of dogs, Doctor. Only problems of masters.” 


	5. The Problem (Part 2 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which spiritual journeys to Devonshire are compared. Holmes/Watson.
> 
> (Rating: Mature for masturbation and a mention of oral sex)

The atmosphere was indeed poisonous at 221B when I returned. I immediately rushed to open a window and send the acrid fumes of strong, coarse tobacco out into the night.

Holmes was coiled his armchair with a black clay pipe between his teeth. Several rolls of paper lay around him.

“Where do you think I’ve been, Watson?” he asked.

“Devonshire?”

“Precisely. While you were in Xanadu, I was—“

He paused. I followed his gaze to my feet. Then our eyes met.

“You were in Devonshire, too,” he remarked. “Funny that our spirits didn’t meet.’”

“How can you possibly know that?”

He pointed down. “Thrice-knotted bootlaces.” He nodded. “Yes, I get rather cross myself when I have only part of my Watson’s attention.”

“Holmes!” I admonished.

He waved a hand.

“I sent down to Stanford’s for this.” He unrolled one section of a large-scale map and held it over his knee. “This is the portion that interests us. Very sparsely populated.” He pointed out various landmarks from Doctor Mortimer’s tale. “The setting is a worthy one if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of humans," he added.

“Holmes, surely you don’t incline yourself to the supernatural explanation.”

“How many criminals, how much wickedness have we seen, you and I? Might the devil’s agents be flesh and blood?”

“But has a crime even been committed? Fright is an indelicate weapon at best, even in someone whose health was weakened like Sir Charles’s.”

“Indeed, but what do you make of the footprints?”

“He wasn’t tiptoeing.”

“No, ridiculous.”

We both spoke at once.

“Running.”

“And look, Watson,” Holmes pointed to a spot on the map, “Sir Charles waited here, perhaps longer than one might expect given the weather and his aversion for the moor. Then he ran _this_ way.”

I shook my head. “Why run away from the house?”

“That is the question.”

“Mad with fear? The facial distortion.”

“Perhaps. And that it was his last night before leaving for London may factor into the solution to the puzzle as well.”

“It’s bewildering.”

“It certainly has a character of his own.” He re-rolled the map. “Might I ask you to hand me my violin, and we will postpone all further thought upon this business until we have had the advantage of meeting Doctor Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville in the morning.”

I passed him his instrument.

He stood and I settled myself into my armchair to listen, but no sooner had the first song begun and my eyelids began to droop.

And I was in the Yew Alley once more.

_SCREECH!_

“Holmes!”

“Keep your eyes on me, Watson. You shan’t frustrate _both_ of us today.” I opened my mouth to protest.

He bent so that his face was before mine. “Your hands,” his gaze dropped; my body responded at once to their heated caress, “may go where they wish.”

He righted himself and began to play anew.

My hands became instruments of his music as well as my pleasure. They freed my half-hard prick and found one of the many jars of unguent that were hidden about our rooms. Slicked, they moved up and down my shaft, eventually matching the rise and fall of the bow.

Holmes waltzed about the room, nodding and swaying and watching my performance. When I finally eased my trousers down further so that I could more readily fondle my sacs and then tease my rim with one finger, he paused the serenade to cheekily blow me a kiss.

I came when the music bid me.

And in the next moment, his knees were on the arms of my chair and his cock was in my mouth.


	6. Sir Henry Baskerville

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Sir Henry and deductions are discovered to be a household affair at 221B.

Our breakfast table was only half-cleared when the bell rang the following morning. Mrs. Hudson abandoned the tray and rushed downstairs.

I heard voices. Then footsteps.

“Mister Holmes! First the rug, and now this!” She bore in her arms a horse saddle. “We have no space for such things, only coats, umbrellas, and other reasonable items. Here!” She thrust the saddle at me, then rushed back to the door and announced. “Sir Henry Baskerville and Doctor Mortimer and Doctor, uh, that is to say, Watson the dog to see you, sir.”

“Please show them up, Mrs. Hudson,” said Holmes in his most soothing tone.

Soon Doctor Mortimer and the young baronet and the curly-haired spaniel were amongst us and pleasantries and introductions were exchanged by all.

At first, I was a bit at a loss as to what to do with the saddle and settled for draping it over the back of my armchair and standing behind it. Mrs. Hudson eyed it with undisguised suspicion as she finished clearing the table. Watson the spaniel, seeing the seat of my chair empty, made himself at home there, and I confess looked as if he belonged.

Sir Henry spoke first. “Mister Holmes, if Doctor Mortimer had not proposed coming round to you this morning I might have come on my own. I understand that you think out puzzles, and I’ve had one this morning in the form of a letter that reached me.”

He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It was of common quality, greyish in colour. The address, “Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel,” was printed in rough characters; the post-mark “Charing Cross,” and the date of posting the preceding evening.

“Who knew that you were going to the Northumberland Hotel?” asked Holmes.

“No one. It was only decided after I met Doctor Mortimer.”

“Doctor Mortimer, were you already stopping there?”

“No, I have been staying with a friend.”

Holmes hummed. Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of paper, which he spread flat upon the newly-cleared table. Across the middle of the paper a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of pasting printed words upon it. It ran: “As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.” The word “moor” only was printed in ink.

“Now,” said Sir Henry, “What in thunder is the meaning of that?”

“There is nothing supernatural about this, Doctor Mortimer,” said Holmes.

“But it may come from someone who is convinced that the business is supernatural,” said Doctor Mortimer.

“What business?” asked Sir Henry, sharply. “You gentlemen know more about my own affairs than I do!”

“It’s been cut from the _Times_ ,” said a voice behind us. We all turned. Mrs. Hudson still had the piled tray in hand. “Yesterday’s. With nail scissors. ‘Moor’ is a rare word to find in a paper. Had to write it.” Then she smiled benignly at us and left the room.

We all looked back at Holmes, who was also smiling. “Deduction is a household affair,” he quipped by way of explanation. Then he turned back to the letter. “She’s correct, of course. Cheap paper. Cheap pen. Hotel. Near yours.”

“But is the warning for good or for evil? And just what are they warning me _of_?” cried Sir Henry.

“To the first I don’t know, not as of yet, but as to the second, Doctor Mortimer, I think it’s time for you to re-tell your tale.”

* * *

When Doctor Mortimer had once again, re-pocketed the manuscript, Sir Henry drew a hand down his face.

“It’s a big thing for a man to have to understand; I should like to have an hour by myself to think about it. I am going back to my hotel now. Suppose, Mister Holmes, you and Doctor Watson come ‘round and lunch with us at two?”

Holmes and I accepted the invitation, and the trio of visitors rose to leave.

“Thank you,” said Sir Henry, taking the saddle from me. “I don’t know why I carry this thing around.” He made for the door, then turned back to give one parting statement.

“But I will say one thing, there is no devil in hell and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going to the home of my own people.”

* * *

When the front door banged, Holmes cried, “Quick, Watson! Not a moment to lose!”

In a few lost moments, we were following Sir Henry and Doctor Mortimer in their return journey to the hotel. Then Holmes spied a hansom cab that was also following them.

The occupant of the hansom must have spied us, too, for Holmes had no more said, “There’s our man, Watson!” when it was taking off down the street at racing speed. Holmes took off after the cab. I took off after Holmes.

I stopped when Holmes did, when he cab had well and truly disappeared.

He panted, “Did you get a look at him?”

“Bushy black beard. Piercing eyes,” I answered between gasps. “Cab number 2704.“

Holmes stared at me with abject delight.

I grinned. “Household affair, remember?”

Holmes nodded. “Indeed,” he said, returning my grin. Then he looked toward the space where the cab had been and his face fell. He made a noise of frustration. “Our man is clever. Well, let’s catch our breath and make good use of our time.”

Good use was a stop at the district messengers office to employ a lad named Cartwright and associates to find the cut copy of the _Times_ amongst the wastepaper bins of the hotels of Charing Cross.

As we left Cartwright, Holmes turned and asked, “How about a Bond Street picture-galleries to fill in the time until we are due at the hotel?”

I wiped my brow for the last time, tucked my sweat-damp handkerchief in my pocket, and nodded my agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sir Henry's saddle is a random bit from the 1981 Lenfilm version of the tale and Mrs. Hudson's deduction is from a 1937 German version _Der Hund von Baskerville_. Thanks to Garonne for translation assistance with the latter.


	7. Interlude: Bond Street Picture Gallery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Holmes and Watson fill in time (by having sex) in a Bond Street picture-gallery. PWP.
> 
> (Rating: Mature for dirty talk, public sex, oral sex, and handjob.)

We found ourselves alone in the rearmost alcove of the gallery.

“Holmes, you know that you really do have the crudest—”

Holmes suddenly pressed tight behind me and whispered, “I quite like that ‘Nude Man Descending.’ Yes, that’s what I’d like to be looking at when you take my cock in your mouth.”

“Holmes!” I hissed. “You will get us both arrested!”

“The owner has left on an errand, and we’ve been so quiet and still that he’s locked us in this establishment for a short duration.”

I turned and stared hard at him. “An errand that you orchestrated?”

Holmes raised both hands. “Coincidence. They do happen. But it is one of which I plan to take full advantage.” He was rubbing a flat plan up and down the front of my trousers. “Please, last night was far too long ago. And I know our chase this morning has got you as heated as I am.”

Perhaps not _quite_ as heated but, yes, a bit warm. Holmes walked backwards to the far wall. I gave one look over my shoulder at the sketch, then followed the Nude Man’s lead and descended.

* * *

When I was on my feet again, Holmes kissed me roughly, his swiping tongue seeking the taste of his own seed.

He growled my name.

“Holmes,” I countered in a teasing tone. I turned away from him, but he grabbed me and spun us so that my face was now against the wall where his back had rested.

Once again, he pressed the length of him to the length of me.

“Anything, Watson.” His hand slipped around and began unfastening my trousers. “Anything your gorgeous heart, mind, or cock desires.”

“I should like you to conserve your energies for this evening.”

His hand stopped moving.

“There is time,” he persisted.

“Last night was lovely, but short. I fancy something protracted, which our current schedule and setting do not afford.”

“True,” he said, kissing my neck. “’Protracted’ meaning ‘fucked.’” He thrust his hips against my arse. His pronunciation of the final word never failed to make me hard. “Take you from behind. Or face-to-face?”

“On our sides.” The image filled my mind; it made my skin warm and my cock throb.

Holmes began to rock our lower halves together as he spoke. “Open you slowly, gently.”

I hummed.

“Sink this cock deep inside you,” he said, with a sharp thrust.

“Over and over,” I replied, my voice strained.

Holmes’s hips imitated my words. “Reach around to pleasure you while I fuck?” he asked.

Once again, that word, in the same voice that brought heads of state and criminal masterminds to their knees.

I trembled.

“Whisper in your ear how glorious your arse is. What a sight to behold it is. No, silly of me, I need to worship that puckered little hole long before all that.”

I was coming apart. “Holmes!” I moaned, freeing my cock from my trousers.

His hand curled 'round my shaft as he said, “I thought we were saving our energies for the evening.”

“Perhaps just a bit of a frig to take the edge off, until then,” I whined.

"Smart."

He held up his palm. We both spit in it. He began to stroke me, and my desire roared, then sprang, well, like a legendary hound.

“No time for a fuck now, I suppose?” My voice was high and needy, but I was too lost in pleasure—current and future—to be embarrassed. And my need, I knew, stoked his.

“We haven’t time. Though it would give me great pleasure to strip you bare right here, bend you in half, and show that virgin shepherdess on the wall just exactly what she’s missing.”

He squeezed my cock tight. I bit back a loud cry, and the last phrase I uttered before I spent myself in his hand was,

“You know, Holmes, you really do have the crudest ideas of art.”


	8. Three Broken Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the much necessary clue of the boot is introduced as well as a completely superfluous tarantula.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In 1959, the Hammer studios (famous for horror films) made a version of _The Hound of the Baskerville_ with Christopher Lee (aka Sauron of LOTR) as Sir Henry Baskerville. And there's a TARANTULA in his boot. It's a spectacular scene from an otherwise not spectacular version. And not in the original story, but it is my opinion that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is miffed that he didn't think of it.
> 
> Also, Sir Henry's coat is from the Lenfilm version.

“I think this biscuit jar will do nicely for Mrs. Hudson,” I said, peering into the handled shopping bag and admiring the lidded porcelain vase. It was a pale pink and decorated with pink and yellow roses and gold and green trim.

“I couldn’t agree more, Watson.”

“Perhaps even more so if it were accompanied by…”

“Indeed. Let’s pick up a bottle of gin on our return journey. Here we are, Northumberland Hotel.”

Holmes inquired in his usual roundabout way as to the other guests at Sir Henry’s hotel, but none fit the description of the bearded man in the cab.

As we came ‘round the top of the stairs, we ran up against Sir Henry himself. His face was flushed with anger, and he held an old, dusty boot in one of his hands.

“Seems to me they are playing me for a sucker in this hotel," he cried. "They'll find they’re monkeying with the wrong man! By thunder, if that chap can't find my missing boot there will be trouble. I can take a joke with the best, Mister Holmes, but they've got a bit over the mark this time."

“What has happened?” asked Holmes.

“I put my brand new brown boots, never worn, out to be varnished last night. This morning, one was missing. Now, someone’s sneaked one of my pair of old black ones. These patent leathers on my feet are my only pair left!”

An agitated young man in uniform appeared.

“Well, have you got it?” asked Sir Henry. “Speak, man! Don't stand staring!"

"No, sir. I have made inquiry all over the hotel, but no word of it,” the young man replied.

"Either that boot comes back before sundown or I go right straight out of this hotel!"

There were mumbled apologies and assurances. "I promise, with a little patience, it will be found."

Sir Henry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Mister Holmes, you'll excuse my troubling you about a trifle."

"It's well worth troubling about, for the simple reason that it’s inexplicable, at least for the moment."

Sir Henry’s anger faded, and we had a pleasant luncheon and afterwards repaired to Sir Henry’s private sitting-room.

“When shall you go to Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry?” I asked.

“At the end of the week.”

“On the whole,” said Holmes, “Your decision is a wise one. You are being dogged in here London, and amid the millions of this city it is difficult to discover who these people are or what their object can be. You and Doctor Mortimer were followed this morning.”

Doctor Mortimer started violently. “Followed! By whom?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot tell you. Have you among your neighbours or acquaintances on Dartmoor any man with a black, full beard?”

“Barrymore, Sir Charles’s butler.”

“We had best ascertain if he is really there, or if by any possibility he might be in London. Give me a telegraph form. ‘Is all ready for Sir Henry?’ That will do. Address to Mr. Barrymore, Baskerville Hall. What is the nearest telegraph-office? Grimpen. Very good, we will send a second wire to the postmaster, Grimpen: ‘Telegram to Mr. Barrymore, to be delivered into his own hand. If absent, please return wire to Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel.’ That should let us know before evening whether Barrymore is at his post in Devonshire or not. Did Barrymore profit at all by Sir Charles’s will?”

“He and his wife had five hundred pounds each,” said Doctor Mortimer.

“Ha! Did they know that they would receive this?”

“Yes; Sir Charles was very fond of talking about the provisions of his will.”

“Interesting.”

“I hope that you do not look with suspicious eyes upon everyone who received a legacy from Sir Charles, for I also had a thousand pounds left to me.”

“Indeed! Anyone else?”

“There were many insignificant sums to individuals and a large number of public charities. The residue all went to Sir Henry.”

“And how much was the residue?”

“Seven hundred and forty thousand pounds.”

Holmes raised his eyebrows. “It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate game. Supposing that anything happened to our young friend here—you will forgive the unpleasant hypothesis!—who would inherit the estate?”

“Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles’s younger brother, died unmarried, the estate would descend to the Desmonds, who are distant cousins. James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in Westmoreland.”

“Have you met Mr. James Desmond?”

“Yes, he once came down to visit Sir Charles. He is a man of venerable appearance and of saintly life.”

“And have you made your will, Sir Henry?”

“No, Mister Holmes, I have not. I’ve had no time, for it was only yesterday that I learned how matters stood.”

“Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay, but you certainly must not go alone. I am afraid that I am currently occupied with a very delicate case and cannot accompany you myself.”

Holmes laid his hand upon my arm.

“If Watson would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.”

Sir Henry seized me by the hand and wrung it heartily.

“Well, now, that is real kind of you, Dr. Watson,” said he. “If you will come down to Baskerville Hall and see me through I’ll never forget it.”

I’d have to be a very different John Watson to resist the combination of public praise from my beloved, a warm-hearted request for aide, and the prospect of a thrilling adventure.

“I will come, with pleasure,” said I. “I do not know how I could employ my time better.”

“And you will report very carefully to me,” said Holmes. “When a crisis comes, as it will, I will direct how you shall act.”

“Would Saturday suit you, Dr. Watson?” Sir Henry asked.

“Perfectly,” I said.

“It is settled then,” said Sir Henry

We all rose.

“I think I’m going to take a walk,” said Sir Henry as he reached for his coat. It was a billowy garment made of brown fur, which, when the young slipped it on, transformed him into an upright-standing bear. “Doctor Mortimer, would you care to join me?”

“Certainly.” Doctor Mortimer glanced at the shopping bag in my hand. “Doctor, may I be so bold as to ask where you purchased that lovely biscuit jar? It seems to me the perfect gift for Mrs. Mortimer, and I would be loath to return to the homestead without a token of affection.”

I was giving him the name and location of the shop in Bond Street when Sir Henry cried out and dove into one of the corners of the room. Like a bear producing a salmon from a rushing stream, he drew a boot from under a cabinet.

“My missing boot!” he cried. It was the new brown one, I noted.

“May all our difficulties vanish as easily!” said Holmes.

“But it is a very singular thing,” Dr. Mortimer remarked. “I searched this room carefully before lunch.”

Sir Henry tapped the boot against the palm of his hand. “What a mystery!”

Holmes froze. “Sir Henry,” he said in a low voice.

I followed Holmes’s gaze to the enormous spider that was crawling from the mouth of the boot onto Sir Henry’s coat-sleeve.

Everyone but Holmes gasped.

“Be still, Sir Henry,” Holmes urged.

“Can’t,” whispered Sir Henry as the creature moved slowly up his arm. Its brown furry legs were almost camouflaged in the brown fur of the coat. Almost.

“Tarantula,” I breathed.

“Watson.”

Holmes’s voice, though barely a whisper, was of a commanding officer to his soldier. He reached for Doctor Mortimer’s stick. I looked about me, then tore the biscuit jar from its bag.

“Avert your head, Sir Henry,” said Holmes.

Sir Henry was sweating now, but he did as requested.

Holmes and I stepped towards him.

“On three, Watson. One, two, three!”

_WHOOSH!_

_WHACK!_

_CLACK!_

The deadly arachnid was in the biscuit jar.

Sir Henry collapsed into Holmes’s arms. “I-I-I don’t think I’ll take that walk after all.”

Doctor Mortimer appeared with a glass of brandy. “Another wise decision, Sir Henry. Don’t you think, Mister Holmes?”

To the others in the room, Holmes probably seems as if he had nerves of steel, but I detected the slight twitch of his left eyelid that betrayed his shaken state.

“Quite so,” he said.

* * *

Holmes and I sat in silence in the cab as we drove back to Baker Street, and I knew from my companion’s drawn brows that his mind was busy in endeavouring to frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently disconnected episodes could be fitted. I, of course, was more concerned with the creature in the biscuit jar that I held tightly closed in my lap.

Holmes glanced at the jar. “Our eight-legged friend will provide ample insight into several ongoing scientific inquiries of mine, Watson.”

“After we liberate it from Mrs. Hudson’s gift!”

“Quite.” He sighed and fixed on the passing street outside. “As I see it, the Baskerville case has three promising threads: one, confirming the whereabouts of Barrymore; two, locating of the cut _Times_ ; and three, the cabman who drove the black-bearded spy. One of them is sure to produce something.”

* * *

I was scrawling ‘For Mrs. Hudson’ on a card when the threads began to snap one by one.

“Damn! Damn!” said Holmes, letting a pair of messages fall to the floor. “Barrymore’s in Dartmoor, and Cartwright has been unsuccessful.”

“There’s still the cabman,” I said.

And lo! There was a ring of the bell.

The cabman was a rough-looking John Clayton, who, though suspicious at first, was easily won over at the prospect of a sovereign. He told us what we already knew, then he said something extraordinary.

“The truth is that the gentleman told me that he was a detective, and that I was to say nothing about him to anyone.”

“When did he say this?” asked Holmes.

“When he left me.”

“Did he say anything more?”

“He mentioned his name.”

“Oh, he mentioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?”

“His name,” said the cabman, “was Mister Sherlock Holmes.”

The day was a singular one in my association with Sherlock Holmes for I saw him genuinely surprised twice in a matter of hours. Evidence of the first was, of course, still captive in the biscuit jar.

Holmes’s left eyelid twitched once. Then he burst into laughter.

“And how would you describe Mister Sherlock Holmes?” he asked.

“Forty years of age, a middle height, two or three inches shorter than you, sir. He had a black beard, cut square at the end, and a pale face. I don’t know as I could say more than that.”

“Colour of his eyes?”

The man shook his head. He could say no more. He was paid and bid us 'good night.'

* * *

“Watson!” Holmes cried when our visitor had departed. “What a cunning rascal! An audacious message, is it not? Well, snap goes the third thread.” He exhaled loudly. “What say we make an early night of it? I have a Bond Street picture gallery promise to keep.”

And just like that, detective became seductor, and I followed him to his bedroom like moth to flame.

But no sooner had we crossed the threshold and closed the door, when we heard movement in the sitting room and an ‘What’s this? Oh, how lovely! They shouldn’t have!’ and I was slow, much too slow, in reacting.

“EEEEE!”

“Thank goodness we bought two bottles of gin,” muttered Holmes as we both raced to the door.


	9. Interlude: Pillowtalk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn the fate of the tarantula and Holmes and Watson discuss the case in bed.
> 
> (Here we earn an Explicit rating for anal sex. There's also a handjob.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for the encouragement and kind (and clever) comments. You'll see some of your suggestions pop up here and there. And for the interested, the bit about the seven orchids is actually from a sonnet that I (as an OC porcupine named Inky Quill) wrote ([Seven Orchids](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6848800/chapters/18446950)).

Holmes would never know the benefits to science that the tarantula might have afforded, for it met its end—as did the biscuit jar, unfortunately—by means of a fire poker in Mrs. Hudson’s hand. And though our much-beleaguered landlady’s first completely coherent utterance was something akin to ‘not enough gin in the world,’ two bottles of the finest label did go a long way in restoring domestic calm and goodwill. I offered her a sedative, but she told me, the exact language I’d prefer not to repeat, that the sleep aide she wanted most was for Holmes and I to retire for the evening and to not rise until late morning whereupon tea, but no more, would be on offer.

We readily obliged.

* * *

There is a grand difference between kisses and kissing.

Behind heavy curtains, Holmes and I do occasionally share kisses. Kisses hello, kisses goodbye. Kisses of tender acknowledgment on the backs, and sometimes palms, of hands. Kisses brushed to temples, usually his when he is engrossed in a home laboratory investigation. Kisses pressed to the tops of heads, usually mine at the moment just before I drift off to sleep in my armchair and the book falls to the floor.

Our kisses are beautiful things. Tiny precious baubles exchanged throughout the day.

But _kissing_ is different.

First, it is done behind locked doors.

But more importantly, when Sherlock Holmes is kissing me, when he is employing the same acumen used to decipher codes and ancient palimpsests towards discovering the precise pressure, angle, and movement of lips needed to convey his passion and stoke mine, well, it is a wondrous experience. And I have no recourse but to match his knowledge with my own, a wisdom collected from encounters on _every_ continent.

Have I never mentioned my voyage to Antarctica?

Our lips remained locked as we sat on the edge of the bed and undressed each other. When all clothing had finally been shed, I reclined on my side. Holmes curled behind me. He spent a long time kissing and caressing my skin before he ever neared my rim with a slicked finger.

I was doubly thankful that I had planted the seed of this night in Holmes’s mind during our naughty picture-gallery coupling. Dark clouds loomed on my horizon. The prospect of danger drew me, but both the doctor and the soldier knew that there was always the chance that I would never return to this bed, to this man.

I savoured the burn of first breech, the connection of body to body, of being entered and occupied by the man that I loved.

“Holmes.”

He laced his fingers in mine. He pulled out, then pushed in a bit further. His breath tickled my ear.

“Watson.”

His teeth were on my neck when his cock was fully sheathed inside me.

I growled and wiggled my lower half as he began to thrust in earnest.

He had not kept his promise of concurrent pleasuring. Thrust by thrust, I was being shifted into the bedding, and he was taking the position of mounting me.

“Suck you. But now. Too good. This arse.” He squeezed my buttocks. “Fuck!”

Reducing the articulate and erudite to crude single syllables was a pleasure all its own.

Holmes was riding me now, pumping hard, grunting my name, slapping his skin obscenely against mine.

When I closed my eyes, I saw the vast expanse of moor and a tall, stone fortress in the distance. I was a pony—one of those sturdy, shaggy breeds that feel at home in a wasteland—being ridden, being beautifully, beautifully used for my master’s purpose.

We were one, horse and rider.

Mythical. Legendary.

“Waston!”

Holmes came.

And I was on my back in an instant.

He swallowed my cock.

I raised my arms and crossed them over my eyes.

Back on the moor, I saw a brave maiden laid low by cruelty, fatigue, and fear. I saw seven tears and one drop of blood fall from her as she stumbled for the last time. From the tear-sown soil, I saw seven stems break the surface and bloom into seven orchids.

The blood, however, grew. And grew. And grew.

Until it was a beast.

“Argh!”

A hard pinch shattered my reverie.

Holmes looked up. “Not yet,” he said as he rose up my body. “You may fill your mind with bear-skinned fantasies…”

“Bear-skin? It’s a hound! Or do you think it is actually a bear? What, lose from the circus? Or zoo?”

Holmes grunted and shook his head. He reached for the unguent on the bedside table and slicked his hand. “Sir Henry. He has some charm, no?”

“Sir Henry?! Fuck all, Holmes! Sir Henry carries around a saddle for no reason. And has boots with hairy spiders in them! Charm!” I snorted.

Holmes smiled. “You know, Watson, that really is the fourth thread. Where could our man have found such a creature in London? Or did he bring it with him from somewhere else?”

I nodded, but had no answer.

Holmes stroked me slowly and licked at my shoulder.

“Sir Henry, indeed. You are completely ridiculous, Holmes,” I murmured affectionately.

“You’re the one who put a big hairy spider in a biscuit jar!”

We giggled. And kissed.

I looked down between our bodies and watched the tip of my cock emerge from his tight fist again and again.

“I tell you, Watson, this time we have got a foe who is worthy of our steel. I’ve been checkmated in London. I can only wish you better luck in Devonshire. But I’m not easy in my mind about sending you.”

“I’m not easy in my mind about leaving you. As far as we know, the spiders, the black-bearded men, are here, and you’ll have no one to watch your back.”

“My Watson,” he said softly. His hand moved lower to my sacs. I lifted my hips slightly to meet his gentle touch and sighed.

“It’s an ugly business, Watson, an ugly, dangerous business, and the more I see of it the less I like it.”

“Consider this, though, Holmes. This fellow wants your attention, that much is clear from the cabman. Perhaps for pure ego, to show he’s cleverer than you. But perhaps it has an additional purpose.”

“What?”

“To distract you for what’s really happening. To push the idea of a murderous hound further and further into your mind until you are blind to other possibilities.”

“My conductor of light,” Holmes whispered with a smile and a nod. “You make a fine point that I shan’t forget.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed my palm. “And I give you my word that I shall be very glad to have you back safe and sound in Baker Street once more. But let’s have no more talk of Saturday and beyond. Keep your eyes on me and I shall show you exactly how much you’ll be missed.”

I nodded and, giving myself completely over to his tender ministrations, banished thoughts of moors and hounds until morning.

_Late_ morning.

 


	10. Baskerville Hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Watson goes to Dartmoor.

On Saturday, Holmes drove with me to the station.

“I shall report the facts,” I said.

“Leave no detail uncommunicated, but facts, theories, musings, all shall be welcome.”

I watched his soft smile dissolve like morning mist, then his tone was business-like.

“I’ve made inquiries and Mister James Desmond, the next heir, is as Doctor Mortimer described, but you should make a special study of the Barrymores, the naturalist Stapleton and his sister, Mister Frankland of Lafter Hall, a neighbor. You go armed?”

“Obviously.”

“Do not relax your precautions, Watson, and return to me safely. That is your final order.”

I smiled as we reached the platform where Doctor Mortimer and Sir Henry awaited us.

“No trouble, but no boot either, Mister Holmes,” said Sir Henry.

“Interesting,” said Holmes. “Bear in mind, Sir Henry, that old legend and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted.”

I believe all of us felt a chill at Holmes’s words, even Watson the dog whimpered.

We exchanged formal goodbyes then boarded.

I looked back at the platform as the train pulled out. Holmes stood motionless, gazing after us. He cut such a striking figure, tall, austere. Emotion swelled within me and, though it was rash, I put my gloved hand to my lips. Without smiling, he put a gloved hand to his cheek, then turned away.

* * *

The journey was a swift and pleasant one. I spent it in making the more intimate acquaintance of my three companions, for Watson the dog was a delightful animal, quick-witted and playful.

Sir Henry stared out of the window. He cried aloud when the familiar features of the Devon scenery appeared. “I’ve not seen a place to compare it,” said he.

“I never saw a Devonshire man who did not swear by his country,” I replied.

As the moor itself came into view, I acknowledged Holmes’s assessment earlier in the week. In London, Sir Henry, garish tweed and ostentatious coat and American accent, looked almost like a caricature, but here, in this strange spot where the men of his blood had held sway so long and left their mark so deep, he did display a certain charm. I saw the pride, valour, and strength of his line in dark and expressive face. And for the very first time, I thought of him as more comrade than ward.

We arrived at the small wayside station and were soon flying swiftly down a broad white road in a wagonette. A mounted soldier with a rifle poised ready over his forearm watched the road as we travelled. When asked, our driver informed us that there was an escaped convict in the area, the fugitive was none other than Selden the Nottinghill Murderer.

I thought of Holmes at once. No doubt he would be aware of this, he’d taken a particular interest in the crime due to its ferocity and news of the escape would have surely made its way into the London papers. Nevertheless, I would add it to my first report.

I sighed. An escaped convict was just the extra bit of melodrama this situation needed! Or was our lunatic perhaps the key to the whole puzzle? It was all so dark and muddled to me, much like the landscape around me.

Sir Henry must have been thinking along similar lines for he said,

“This place enough to scare any man. I’ll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won’t know it again, with a thousand-candle power Swan and Edison right here in front of the hall door.”

Doctor Mortimer continued onto his home after Sir Henry and I dismounted at Baskerville Hall. We met Barrymore and his wife. I studied the butler and his thick, black beard carefully, but could not say with certainty if he was the man who had been following Sir Henry in London. Holmes’s telegrams had confirmed that Barrymore had been here at the time, but I was determined to follow-up on that snapped thread tomorrow. The only unusual thing was that Barrymore expressed a desire to leave Baskerville Hall and set up his own home and business whenever it was convenient for Sir Henry. Unusual, but understandable given the inheritance he’d received from Sir Charles.

Sir Henry and I ate dinner and retired to our respective bedrooms early.

I drew aside my curtains before I went to bed and looked out from my window at the moor. Perhaps it seemed melancholy only because I was.

I missed my Holmes.

Chiming clocks struck out the quarters of the hours, but sleep would not come. Then, in the middle of the night, I heard the distinct sob of woman. I listened for half an hour after it ceased, but heard only the chimes until sleep finally overtook me.


	11. The Stapletons of Merripit House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Watson meets two neighbours and does a bit of sleuthing.

“I guess it is ourselves and not the house that we have to blame!” said Sir Henry the following morning as he and I sat at breakfast. Sunlight flooded through the windows, and the dark paneling glowed.

“Did you happen to hear a woman crying last night?”

“I do fancy that I heard something of the sort, but I was half asleep.” He rang the bell and asked Barrymore about the matter.

Barrymore said that there were only two women in the house, a scullery-maid who slept on the other wing, and his wife, whom it was not.

A lie, as anyone who glanced at Mrs. Barrymore could tell by her face that she’d been crying, and it made me determined to follow-up on Holmes’s telegram regarding Barrymore’s whereabouts. As Sir Henry had numerous papers to examine and would be occupied for the morning, I set off for Grimpen by myself, where I saw Doctor Mortimer and Watson, the latter was dutifully trailing behind his master, carrying the walking stick between his jaws.

Doctor Mortimer waved and called out that he would visit Sir Henry when he had finished his rounds. I nodded and, very much like my canine counterpart, carried on in my role as helpmate.

I was dismayed to learn that the telegram had been given to Mrs. Barrymore and that the postman had not seen the butler in person. So Barrymore might be Sir Henry’s spy in London, after all.

As I walked back to the hall, someone called my name. I turned. He was a small, slim, clean-shaven, prime-faced man, flaxen-haired and lean-jawed, between thirty and forty years of age, dressed in a grey suit and wearing a straw hat. A tin box for botanical specimens hung over his shoulder, and he carried a green butterfly-net in one of his hands.

“Excuse my presumptions, Doctor,” said he as he came panting up to where I stood. “I am Stapleton of Merripit House. I have been calling on Mortimer, and he pointed you out to me. How is Sir Henry?”

“He is very well, thank you.”

“Of course, you know the legend of the fiend dog which haunts the family. Has Sir Henry any superstitious fears in settling here?”

“Not at all.”

“That is good. The story took great hold upon the imagination of Sir Charles, and I have no doubt that it led to his end.”

“But how?”

“His nerves were so worked up that the appearance of any dog might have had a fatal effect upon his diseased heart. I fancy he really did see something of the kind upon the last night in the Yew Alley.”

“The appearance of a dog frightened him to death?” I scoffed.

“Have you—or Sherlock Holmes—any better explanation?” he countered.

“I am afraid I cannot answer that,” I said stiffly.

“Will Mister Holmes honour us with a visit himself?”

“He has other cases which engage his attention.”

“What a pity! He might have been able to shed light on things. Feel free to call on me for aide or advice in your researches.”

“I am here on a friendly visit, no more,” I insisted.

“Perfect reproof! And you are wise to be wary. I shall say no more, except to invite you to Merritpit House to introduce you to my sister.”

I accepted his invitation.

“It is a wonderful place, the moor,” said he as we walked. “I have only been here two years, but my interests have led me to explore every part of the country. Few know it better than I do. For example, there is Grimpen Mire.” He pointed. “One false step means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw a moor pony wander into it. He never came out. It sucked him down whole. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive. There are one or two paths which a very active man can take. I have found them out. By George, there is another of those miserable ponies.”

A dreadful cry echoed over the moor. A long agonized writhing neck shot upward among the green sedges.

“It’s gone. The Mire has him,” declared Stapleton. “It is only by remembering certain complex landmarks that I am able to traverse it, but it is worth the danger and exertion, for there are islands, cut off on all sides by the Mire, where the rarest of plants and butterflies live.

A long low moan, indescribably said, swept over the moor.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Mud settling, water rising. Bogs make strange sounds. Could be the Hound of the Baskervilles calling for its prey? Or a bittern booming?” he suggested.

“A what?”

“A very rare bird. Perhaps it was the cry of the last of the bitterns.”

Nonsense, I thought, but decided to change the topic.

“What is that?” I pointed the many grey circular rings of stone that decorated the steep slope.

“The homes of Neolithic man. Wigwams with the roofs off. Much undisturbed, if you care to take a look. Oh, excuse me! A Cyclopides!”

Something fluttered across our path and Stapleton took off after it, bounding from tuft to tuft, straight into the Mire. I stood watching his pursuit until I heard the sound of footsteps on the path.

I turned.

“Go back!” said a woman, who could be none other than Miss Stapleton. She was a beauty, but a striking contrast to her brother. She was slim, elegant, and tall. Her hair was darker than any brunette whom I have seen in England and her eyes were also dark and beautiful. They flashed as she urged, “Go straight back to London instantly.”

“Why should I go back?” I asked.

“I cannot explain.” She looked towards her brother. “But for God’s sake do what I ask you. Go back and never set foot upon the moor again.”

“But I’ve just come.”

“Man, man!” she cried. “Can you not tell when a warning is for your own good? Go back to London! Start tonight! Get away from this place at all costs! Hush, my brother is coming. Not a word of what I have said.” Then her manner changed completely. “Would you mind getting that orchid for me among the mare-tails yonder? We are rich in orchids on the moor, though, of course, you are rather late to see the beauties of the place.”

I had the strangest sensation—both very familiar and completely foreign to me—but I hadn’t time to introspect, as Holmes says, because Stapleton came back to us breathing hard.

“Hullo, Beryl! I’ve just missed a Cyclopides, rare and seldom found in the late autumn. You have introduced yourselves, I see.”

“Yes, I was just telling Sir Henry—“

“No, no,” I interrupted. “A humble commoner, but his friend. Doctor Watson.”

“Oh, excuse me. It cannot matter much to you whether it is early or late for orchids.”

And once again, that sensation. What was it?!

“But will you come on and see Merripit House?” she continued.

A short walk brought us to the house.

“Odd spot to choose, is it not?” said Stapleton. “And yet we manage to make ourselves happy, do we not, Beryl?”

“Quite happy,” said she, without a ring of conviction.

Stapleton continued. “I had a school in the north country. A serious epidemic broke out. Three boys died. The school never recovered. But I find unlimited work here, my tastes run to botany and zoology.”

“You don’t find it dull, Miss Stapleton?” I asked.

“No, no, I am never dull,” she said quickly.

Conversation turned to other topics. I declined Stapleton’s invitation to view his collection of Lepidoptera and returned to Baskerville Hall.

Miss Stapleton appeared on the path.

“I am sorry for my stupid mistake, Doctor. Please forget my words.”

“I cannot,” I confessed. “I am Sir Henry’s friend. Tell me why you warn him.”

“A woman’s whim.”

I shook my head.

“You know the story of the hound?” she asked.

“You believe such nonsense?”

“Yes. This is a place of danger for Sir Henry.”

“You must give me some more definite information.”

“I do not know anything definite.”

I sighed. “I will convey your warning.”

“My brother is anxious to have the Hall inhabited for he thinks it is for the good of the poor folk upon the moor. He would be very angry if he knew that I have said anything which might induce Sir Henry to go away. I will say no more. I must go back or he will miss me and suspect that I have seen you.”

And with that, she disappeared.

I puzzled over the encounter my entire journey back to Baskerville Hall, but could make no sense of it or my odd sensation.

Doctor Mortimer and Watson stopped by for a late luncheon. I asked him to show me the Yew Alley where Sir Charles had died. I stood at the moor-gate, and then an idea occurred.

“Watson is a well-trained dog, yes? He will follow your instructions well?”

Doctor Mortimer smiled and scratched behind the canine’s ears. “Rare is the gun-dog that doesn’t know his master.” Watson licked at Doctor Mortimer’s cheek. “And even rarer the master would not lay aside all for the welfare of his companion-friend.”

“Do you think you could get it to charge at the gate? To follow in the footprints—if not the size, then at least the path—that you spied?”

“Re-enact the scene?”

“Something like that.”

“Come on, Watson,” Doctor Mortimer urged.

I put myself in Sir Charles’s place.

_I am standing, smoking, thinking, perhaps._

_Or waiting. Waiting for someone who wants to see me before I depart for London. I am terrified of the moor, but I am nevertheless here. Someone important, then._

_Here comes the dog._

Watson came bounding towards me.

_My worst nightmare has manifested. I am frightened, so frightened that I run, not towards the house, but away from it._

I ran.

Watson ran after me.

I stopped and grabbed my chest.

Watson, no doubt, believing the game was still in play, ran around me, jumping and yipping happily.

Doctor Mortimer appeared. “Watson makes for quite a congenial hell-hound,” he said, smiling.

“But he illustrates a good question,” I said, as I knelt and rubbed Watson’s head. “Not why are the tracks that you saw there, but why do they stop and not approach the body? No violence on Sir Charles. No attack. Why wouldn’t a vicious hell-hound attack?”

“Well, if it is a supernatural creature, driven by the curse, then perhaps the death of Sir Charles was its objective and once that was achieved, it retreated.”

The answer was less than satisfying, but it was the only one I had at the moment.

In the afternoon, Stapleton called upon Sir Henry and we both went to the spot on the moor where Sir Hugo’s tragedy is said to have taken place. Sir Henry was much interested and asked many questions. I could see that the legend was taking hold in him.

On our way back we had tea at Merripit House and Sir Henry made the acquaintance of Miss Stapleton. The attraction was strong from the first moment that he saw her, and the feeling appeared to be mutual. He spoke of her again and again on our walk home.

The day was a long one, and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, but my rest was not peaceful. My dreams were a cacophony of sounds. I heard the sinking pony’s dreadful death-cry. I heard the haunting moan. I heard Miss Stapleton’s voice saying ‘Go back!’ I even heard the running footsteps of Sir Charles and his final gasp of breath as well as the pounding hooves of Sir Hugo’s steed and the rabble of the pack of hounds that he’d unleashed on the maid.

I woke up in a sweat.

I immediately got to my feet and began to pace and mutter to myself.

“Holmes is relying on me for facts! And Sir Henry’s safety may very well depend on me seeing things clearly. I cannot be tormented by sounds and stories. No more dreams or reveries! I must see things as they are. I must not be misled by,” I went to the window and threw back the curtain, “It is all just stage and lighting and sound effects. It is all theater! Costumes and props and—”

I gasped.

The sensation!

The sensation that I had while talking with Beryl Stapleton!

I remembered when I’d felt it before. One day, in my first few months of living at Baker Street, I found an old fortune-telling crone waiting in the rooms when I arrived. Mrs. Hudson said she was a client awaiting Holmes’s return. We spoke; she offered to read my palm. And in that instant, I’d known somewhere deep in my bones, though perhaps it was the grey eyes, that this was a tiny stage, a farce, and that I was being duped.

I looked down at my hand as she traced a line and told me of a silent admirer whose affection grew daily. Then I looked up and there was Holmes.

But I had known, even before the wig had dropped, that it was an act.

Beryl Stapleton had been acting, for whose benefit and for what reason, I was not certain.

She might have known who I was all along and wanted to convey the message to Sir Henry--or Holmes? Surely my accent was not that of a recently arrived Canadian, though perhaps she did not know the particulars of Sir Henry's origin.

The clock chimed two.

I heard shuffling in the corridor.

I waited for it to pass then peeped out.

Barrymore! In bare feet! With a candle!

I followed him as noiselessly as possible.

He went into an unused room and held the candle to the window.

A signal of some kind!

My heart leapt.

This was no superstition or odd noise or bit of a fairy-tale nightmare! This was not even my instincts!

This was a real happening!

I raced back to my room and began my first report to Holmes at once.


	12. First Report of Doctor Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Watson and Sir Henry work together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'helping Sir Henry get ready' and the drunk scene are from the 1981 Lenfilm version. The cuddling on the bed with the revolver waiting for Barrymore is from a 1971 film version of the book, also in Russian.

The following chapters are transcriptions of my own letters to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Of this first report, one page is missing, and I begin the morning after I spied Barrymore at the window.

* * *

…and, thus, before breakfast, I examined the room in which I had seen Barrymore the night before. The window where he stood with the candle commands the nearest outlook on to the moor. It had been dark, but his light must have been a communication to someone. My first thought was a love affair, which would explain the stealth and the crying wife.

At breakfast, Sir Henry questioned Barrymore about your telegram. He said he told his wife what to answer. Sir Henry’s countenance at this response disquieted the butler, but tension was quickly diffused by Sir Henry offering Barrymore a considerable part of his old wardrobe. Sir Henry’s new clothes, indeed, all of his belongings, both the London-bought and those from his former home, have arrived. I have been providing some assistance to him in sorting them.

At this point, I must mention in passing that Sir Henry has among his possessions a magnificent bearskin rug. I complimented him on it, and he was in middle of telling me of the fantastical story of its origin, when Mister Frankland of Lafter Hall, a residence some four miles to the south of Baskerville Hall, arrived.

He is an elderly, white-haired, red-faced man whose passion is for the law. He fights for the mere enjoyment of fighting and is currently engaged in no fewer than seven litigations. Most of his conversation was devoted to describing his intention to prosecute Doctor Mortimer for opening a grave without the consent of the next-of-kin. The doctor, it seems, had dug up a Neolithic skull in the barrow on Long Down.

Mister Frankland also declared, with some frustration, that he had not yet located Selden, the escaped convict, though he confessed to spending a good deal of time atop his roof, eye to telescope, scanning the environs for signs of him.

I was surprised when Sir Henry invited the old man to dinner.

As soon as Mister Frankland had departed, Sir Henry turned to me. “How about a small celebration, Doctor Watson? Will give me a chance to show off my new style,” he gestured to the suits and shirts, “and welcome the neighbours.”

“Excellent idea. Perhaps you have one neighbour in mind?” I grinned.

“I most certainly do.”

“Sir Henry…” Barrymore had been nearby while Sir Henry and I were about the boxes and crates, so I had not found a private moment to relate what I had seen the previous night.

My intention was thwarted once again when Barrymore entered to announce the arrival of Doctor Mortimer.

The doctor was also invited to dinner. He accepted.

I expressed my concern at the absence of Watson by his side. “I trust he is not ill.”

“Oh, no! But he is worrying me. Last night, he got out and was gone all night. He is an intelligent animal and adept at navigating the moor, but nevertheless, I was kept awake, anxious for his return. This morning, he reappeared muddy and wet and exhausted from his carousing, and I, of course, wept with relief. He is sleeping now, but I must keep an eye on him, and if he should happen to wander this way after dusk…”

“We shall provide him the best of sanctuary until daylight,” Sir Henry reassured.

Doctor Mortimer sighed. “My other worry is this legal case of Mister Frankland’s.” He gave his side of the matter. Sir Henry and I offered our listening ears and then our sympathies and then soon he, too, was on his way.

Dinner invitations were extended to the Stapletons via messenger and accepted.

I did not get my moment alone with Sir Henry until later that evening. Drink in hand, he asked me to assist him in dressing for dinner. He confided that he was anxious to make as positive an impression on Miss Stapleton as possible and wanted to look every bit the dapper gentleman.

I afforded him a fresh shave and told him of my observation of Barrymore. We agreed on a plan to watch the window together, hiding ourselves in the adjoining unused suite after all had gone to bed.

Sir Henry finished his drink, then poured another and by the time the glass was empty for the second time, his shirt cuffs were peeking out the appropriate length from his jacket sleeves, and he did, in fact, look every bit the dapper gentleman.

Dinner was a pleasant affair, except for the distinct signs of disapprobation in Stapleton whenever Sir Henry displayed any kind of prolonged attention towards his sister. In truth, even the legal adversaries, Doctor Mortimer and Mister Frankland seemed to be able to put their differences aside and enjoy the meal with far greater ease than the naturalist.

Miss Stapleton cut a striking figure, but her gaze, though warm towards Sir Henry, frequently flitted nervously back to her brother. Her voice waivered occasion, too, and at these times, she displayed a curious lisp.

He is a controlling sort, I thought, and she is under his thumb. I wondered how ill Stapleton’s disposition would bode for Sir Henry’s wooing.

When the guests departed and the rest of the household went to bed, Sir Henry and I took up our Barrymore-watching post. We were both muddled, though. Spirits had flowed freely both during and after dinner.

“I say, Watson, is that all?” Sir Henry whispered as we lay, both shoeless, side by side, atop the bed, facing each other.

“She said it was early yet to enjoy the beauties of the moor,” I mumbled. My revolver lay on the pillow between us. “The orchids are not blossoming yet.”

“What would that mean?” he mused.

“Not blossoming and that is that,” I growled.

Sir Henry’s smile and eyelids drooped, and soon he was snoring. I fought valiantly to remain awake and alert, but when the clock chimed four and there was still no stirring in the next room, I crept back to my own bedchamber to pen this report.


	13. Interlude: Bearskin rug fantasies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bearskin rug fantasies are expressed in written and spoken word and the 'missing' page of the first report is explained. 
> 
> Sir Henry/Watson. Watson/Holmes. PWP.
> 
> (Explicit for handjob and anal and oral sex.)

“I’ve seen a bit of the world, Doctor, but not as much as you,” whispered Sir Henry.

“The army,” I replied with a vague wave.

“I imagine it expands one’s appetites as well as one’s horizons.” He raised his eyebrows.

I snorted and shrugged, twisting away and attempting to fix my gaze on the ceiling.

He fell silent, and when I looked back, his gaze was fixe on a point on my neck.

“You’re a marked man, Doctor Watson,” he said. “Someone is quite lucky.”

I cursed my imprudence, and Holmes’s.

“If a beautiful butterfly hadn’t just stolen my heart and if,” he glanced back at my neck, “you weren’t clearly spoken for, I might suggest we better use of our wait. The bearskin rug has possibilities, no?”

Indeed, it did, possibilities which had already crossed my mind.

“What a beautiful butterfly,” he groaned and rolled on his back, rubbing his palm up and down the front of his trousers as he spoke. “That pretty way she has of talking. The way she smells. White jessamine. I asked. Discretely, of course.”

His words mixed with the spirits in my veins, and I was drawn into his fantasy. “On the rug,” I suggested.

“Oh, God, yes.”

The image had its allure, but I confess I found the immediate picture of Sir Henry as, if not more, arousing. His trousers betrayed the outline of his hardening cock.

“Doctor.” Both of Sir Henry’s hands were at the front of his trousers now.

I grunted once, whether of encouragement or approbation, I am not able to recollect. But my second grunt was of pure appreciation.

It was a handsome prick, thick and flush and jutting out from a mass of dark hair. Sir Henry spit in his hand and rolled back towards me. He began to stroke himself, then stopped.

“By thunder, you aren’t just going to watch, are you?” he cried.

I chuckled and set about unbuttoning, unfastening, and easing aside clothing until I had a nice view, from chest to cock. Holmes and Abû Tabâh and, indeed, most of the men I had known of late were quite smooth, so Sir Henry’s hirsute torso begged to be caressed. I pinched nipples and fondled sacs, but gave most my attention to running my hands up and down his exposed body, simply enjoying the texture of hair on skin and, of course, the sight of his prick coming to life.

“Soft. So soft,” he slurred. “Soft skin, soft breasts, soft cunt, God, bury myself in her softness.”

I spit in my own hand and joined him in his stroking. “The noises she’d make. The taste of sweat on skin.” I twisted my hand over his leaking head.

“Oh, Doctor, your someone is a lucky, lucky, lucky bastard.”

Soon, I felt his body tense and his breath quicken.

It was such a handsome prick, I gave in to my lust and asked,

“May I?”

This reply was strained. “Please.”

I swallowed him and he came with a stifled cry down my throat.

He was asleep within seconds. I cleaned him as best I could and set his clothes to rights. Then I tiptoed down the hall with boots in my hand.

* * *

The door to my own sleeping chamber had no sooner closed then I was quickly locating a jar of unguent amongst my belongings and taking my own half-hard prick in a well-slicked hand.

I closed my eyes and mouthed.

“Holmes.”

Holmes on the bearskin rug.

Naked. Writhing. Whimpering.

That great mind slowed, if not stilled, and that lithe body on fire with the sensations that only fur on bare skin and a hard cock sunk deep inside a yielding orifice can produce.

Long legs hooked over my shoulders.

Thrusting.

A leaking cock bobbing between us.

I quickly spent myself inside my fantasy companion and open my eyes to find I had also spent myself all over my hand. Before I went to sleep, I penned one addition to my first report.

_My dearest,_

_This ink is curious. It never ceases to make me philosophical, for when I write, my words exist, they have form and substance, they are. But within seconds, they vanish and the page is blank. And to think you fashioned the formula for this magic when you were nine years old! And crafted the pen when you were ten!_

_Here I am once again being your awe-struck Boswell instead of your lover._

_I miss you, my love._

_I pleasured myself tonight with the thought of taking you on the bearskin rug of Sir Henry’s. I shall recount the details for I know if I don’t, you shall be cross when we meet again. You were on your back, bent nearly in half. I let you suffer, not allowing you to touch yourself or find your own release until I was satisfied. You begged so prettily that I finally relented._

_I am growing hard again as I write, thinking of taking you a second time upon the same soft surface. I would roll you on your stomach. Your hole is already stretched and oozing from my first effort. I draw my finger through the mess and lick._

_“More,” you plead, rising up on your forearms and fixing me with those grey eyes. Like pools of mercury, they are hot with desire._

_“What an insatiable tart,” I murmur. You wiggle your bottom in confirmation of this fact._

_I tongue your hole for some time, licking the dripping filth as well as whispering it into soft skin of your buttocks. I call you every lewd name I know, in every language that I know. Then I rim you some more, that is, until your fingernails are clawing at the fur and you are roaring like a beast._

_A bear? A demon-hound?_

_“No,” I chuckle, “Just a bitch in heat.”_

_Then I mount you and fuck you soundly._

_I spent the remainder of the reverie suckling your cock like a babe, bringing your to crisis again and again as you doze and wake to pleasure._

_Well, I must close, my beloved, so as to tend to my own urgent need once more and get a bit of sleep before dawn._

_Know that I remain,_

_Ever yours._

_JHW_


	14. Second Report of Doctor Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some things remain obscure, some things become clear and one thing glows.

My second report concerns two matters; one continues to puzzle while the other has met with resolution.

The first is an incident between Sir Henry and the Stapletons. I have kept my charge and remained in close proximity to Sir Henry. Today he expressed a desire to venture onto the moor alone with the purpose of keeping an assignation with Miss Stapleton. Not wishing to insult or vex him, I did not insist on accompanying him, but rather decided to follow him at as close proximity as I dared.

The couple were a quarter of a mile off from me, walking slowly as if in deep conversation, when Sir Henry suddenly drew Miss Stapleton to his side. His arm was around her, but she strained away from him with her face averted. He stooped his head to hers, and she raised one hand. Then they sprang apart and turned hurriedly round. Stapleton appeared, running wildly towards them, his butterfly-net dangling behind him. He gesticulated at Sir Henry, whose raised hands soon fluttered with his own gestures while Miss Stapleton stood by. Finally, brother turned upon his heel and beckoned to his sister, who, after a glance at Sir Henry, walked off with her sibling, with Stapleton continuing to wave, now at her. Sir Henry stood for a minute looking after them, and then he walked slowly back the way that he had come, his head hanging.

I could not shake the sensation of before, that I was audience to a private scripting. Were that you were here, Holmes. Through your lens, I feel certain that my misgiving would have both name and label precise.

Sir Henry came upon me.

“Halloa, Doctor. I thought I was missing my shadow,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “Those two,” he looked back at the spot where confrontation had taken place, “will confound a man. I offered marriage to the lady but neither sister nor brother seem especially keen on the idea.”

As I had no counsel to offer and Sir Henry did not appear to be in the mood to welcome any, we walked back to the Hall in silence.

Curiously, Stapleton visited that very afternoon and offered so handsome an apology that Sir Henry declared the breach healed, and we were invited to dinner at Merripit House on Friday.

The continued puzzling behaviour of the Stapletons was soon put out of mind, however, as Sir Henry and I prepared for our second surveillance of Barrymore.

And, this time, we caught him.

His candle was a signal to none other than Selden, the escape convict, who is also, as it turns out, Mrs. Barrymore’s brother. The couple had been secretly providing food to the fugitive, who is still hiding upon the moor.

After their confession, Sir Henry bid the Barrymore return to their rooms. Then he and I decided to capture this menace ourselves. Barrymore had already initiated the signal and Sir Henry and I both noted its reply, a pinpoint light some short distance from the Hall.

Armed with my revolver, I followed Sir Henry into the night. The air was heavy with damp and decay, and now and again, the moon peeped out from driving clouds.

As we walked, a strange cry—like the one I’d heard with Stapleton the day we’d met—echoed.

“What is that?” asked Sir Henry. “A hound?”

“The moor makes strange sounds,” I replied, but my words rang false and trite.

“Watson, is that the Hound of the Baskervilles?” pressed Sir Henry.

“Put such nonsense out of your head. We are after a flesh-and-blood criminal, not a ghost.”

“It is one thing to laugh in London, quite another to hear it out here.” He shivered. “But you are right. Let’s push on and get our man.”

Our man might have got us if the rock he threw had not hit the boulder that sheltered us. He had a yellow face and matted hair and was fouled with mire. The moon appeared from behind the clouds and we saw him spring to his feet with a curse and then bound away like a mountain goat. Sir Henry and I gave pursuit, but it was soon obvious that we would not be able to overtake him. Finally, we stopped and sat panting on two rocks while we watched him disappear in the distance.

When we rose to go home, the moon was low upon the right and the jagged pinnacle of a granite tor stood up against the lower curve of its silver disc. And there, I saw the figure of a man upon the tor. Not the convict, this was a tall, thin man who stood with his legs a little separated, his arms folded, his head bowed, as if brooding.

And in a blink of an eye, he was gone.

* * *

Thus ends my second report. I must turn now to my diary to prompt my memory.

It was evident that Sir Henry had not seen the man on the tor. His nerves were still a bit shaken, he was leading the way directly back to the Hall at a determined pace.

As we reached the edge of the moor, I heard a noise behind me. I stopped and turned. The moon was hidden now, and a light rain had begun to fall.

I saw an odd glow, minute and faint and growing fainter as the larger shadow that surrounded it approached. There was a rustling and a quiet snorting.

I drew my weapon and aimed low. Behind me, but at a distance, there was a noise of alarm and my name being called and boots running.

“Halt!” I cried as the shadow neared.

It answered my command with a bark.

A _very familiar_ bark.

“WATSON!” I exclaimed.

I gave my revolver to Sir Henry who was now beside me and opened my arms. The curly-haired spaniel launched himself into my embrace and began to greet me with assorted licks and nuzzles.

“By Jove, I’ve nearly had two heart attacks tonight,” said Sir Henry, slapping me on the back and giving Watson an affectionate scratch behind the ears.

* * *

Sir Henry went straight to bed. I carried Watson to my bedroom. In the darkness, I fumbled for a match and dropped it, then noticed something peculiar.

Watson—a tiny, twitching smudge of him, at any rate—was glowing.

I lit a candle and examined the spot on his fur.

“Phosphorus,” I declared and shook my head. “My dear Watson, the company you keep.”

He whined softly and licked my nose.

I prepared for bed, then drew back the curtains and settled myself comfortably between a pair of chairs with Watson in my lap.

Then I pet my friend and smoked and stared out at the darkness until night became day.

 


	15. Extract from the Diary of Doctor Watson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Watson's patience wears thin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that this chapter did not get posted when it was supposed to!

By morning, I had my plan, but like all plans, it did not go exactly as envisioned.

I was derailed by a bit of news that Barrymore shared after breakfast.

"You've been so kind to us, Sir Henry, that I should like to do the best I can for you in return. I know something about poor Sir Charles’s death. I know he was at the gate at that hour to meet a woman whose initials were L. L.”

Startled, Sir Henry asked, “How do you know this, Barrymore?”

“Your uncle had a letter that morning from Coombe Tracey addressed in a woman’s hand. A few weeks ago my wife was cleaning out Sir Charles’s study—it had never been touched since his death—and she found the ashes of a burned letter in the back of the grate. One little slip, the end of a page, hung together, and the writing could still be read. It seemed to us to be a postscript and it said: ‘Please, please, as you are a gentleman, burn this letter, and be at the gate by ten o’clock.’ Beneath it were signed the initials L. L. It crumbled all to bits after we moved it.”

“Had Sir Charles received any other letters in the same writing?”

“I took no particular notice of his letters. I should not have noticed this one only it happened to come alone."

"And you have no idea who L. L. is?"

"No, sir."

"I cannot understand, Barrymore, how you came to conceal this important information. Did you think it might injure Sir Charles’s reputation?"

“I thought no good could come of it.”

“Very good, Barrymore; you can go.”

When the butler had left us Sir Henry turned to me. “Well, Watson, what do you think of this new light?”

“I think I’m to go to Coombe Tracey at once.”

I’d sent word to Doctor Mortimer that his dog was safe at Baskerville Hall. He stopped by to retrieve Watson as I was leaving. I asked him about the initials L.L.

“Could be Laura Lyons, Frankland’s daughter. She lives in Coombe Tracey. She married an artist named Lyons, who came sketching on the moor. He deserted her, and her father refused to have anything to do with her. Several of us did something to enable her to earn an honest living. Stapleton, Sir Charles, and I myself all contributed to set her up in a type writing business.”

* * *

I found Mrs. Lyons before a shiny Remington typewriter, and after fumbling introductions, I launched into my interrogation.

“Did you correspond with Sir Charles Baskerville?”

“I certainly wrote to him once or twice to acknowledge his delicacy and his generosity in helping me with my unhappy situation.”

“Did you write to agree to meet him on the night that he died?”

“Is there no such thing as a gentleman?!” she cried.

“He burnt the letter,” I said and quoted the postscript. “Only that scrap remained in the hearth. Why that day and that hour, Mrs. Lyons?”

“I learned that he was going to London. I could not meet him in his house. But I did not keep the appointment.”

I snorted but she continued, her voice rising to a shrill pitch.

“My life has been one incessant persecution from a husband whom I abhor! At the time that I wrote that letter to Sir Charles I had learned that there was a prospect of my regaining my freedom if certain expenses could be met. I knew Sir Charles’s generosity, and I thought that if he heard the story from my own lips he would help me."

"Then how is it that you did not go?"

"Because I received help in the interval from another source."

"Why then, did you not write to Sir Charles and explain this?"

"So I should have done had I not seen his death in the paper next morning."

She was lying, not completely, but about something, and my patience was worn thin.

I stood.

“You are involved in this, Madame. How or why, I do not know, but I do know that Sherlock Holmes is on this case and that means _the truth will be known_. And I shall hear it when it is ripped from your lips. Good day.”

* * *

Finally, I was about my own business. I visited Mister Frankland and had a long, careful look through his telescope as well as a chat about his latest legal jousting. Then I went to see Doctor Mortimer at his dig and borrowed Watson.

With my canine companion’s keen instincts and my own bearings from what I’d seen through the telescope, the two of us headed toward the circle of Neolithic stone huts. In the centre hut, I saw the vestiges of habitation, tins and cooking utensils and a blanket.

I waited, aching for a cigarette, but refusing myself the consolation.

I heard footsteps and placed myself flat beside the opening of the hut. When the shadow became a silhouette, I raised my revolver and said in a steely voice,

“Rare is the gun-dog that doesn’t know its master, Holmes.”


	16. The Man on the Tor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Holmes and two Watsons confer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stew dialogue is from the Granada version of the tale.

“Hello, Watson. Hello, Watson,” said Holmes as he crossed into the hut with his hands raised in surrender. My canine companion bounded playfully towards him.

“Watson,” I warned.

The dog stopped, almost mid-leap. His head twitched from me to Holmes and back to me, and he must have reconsidered his initial impulse, for he quickly settled back at my heels.

“Foolish of me to let the moon rise behind me last night,” said Holmes.

“Most imprudent,” I agreed without lowering my weapon.

“Please be careful with the revolver.”

“That is, by far, the stupidest thing you’ve ever uttered.” I sniffed loudly. “You use me and yet do not trust me, Holmes!”

“I trust you, Watson, with my reputation, my work, my life, everything that I am.”

“Everything except your plan!”

“My presence would have alerted any adversary and put him on his guard. Had you known of my whereabouts, you might have tried to send me a message or offered me some aid or comfort and I could not run the risk of discovery.”

I winced. “I am a soldier, Holmes, your army as well as Her Majesty’s. I am well-versed in following orders.”

“I beg your forgiveness.”

“You are apologetic, but unrepentant. You will do it again, if your ego sees fit.”

It was his turn to wince.

I slipped an envelope from inside my coat and threw it at him. “My first report was a shameful waste of paper and ink. Here is your second.”

He shook his head. “Those words which were not committed to memory wholesale, were studied as carefully as any manuscript that has ever found its way into my hands. You are invaluable to me, Watson, as are your observations.”

My anger flared again.

“I am a pawn!” I cried. “A hired gun! _A whore!_ ”

He paled, then spoke quietly. “But a pawn might very well take a Queen. Abuse me for my judgment and my ego as you may, but do not insult my regard for you.”

Hands still raised, he turned to face me. Grey eyes flashed.

“I would raze the earth for you, John Watson. Heavens, hell, mire or celestial sphere, there is nowhere and nothing I would not challenge, cross or conspire against to keep you from harm.”

We stood locked in a silent tableau until a low whine emanated from a point near my boot.

“The case,” I said matter-of-factly and lowered my revolver.

Holmes’s exhaled of relief gave me more joy than I should care to admit. Then he asked the most extraordinary question.

"Are you hungry?"

I suddenly realised that I had not eaten since breakfast and night had already descended outside the entrance to the hut.

I was famished.

Holmes handed me a plate and spoon and reached for a small pot.

I stared at the mixture that poured out.

"Stew," he said.

I frowned. "It's disgusting, Holmes."

"Yes," he said solemnly. "Well, it's a bit better hot."

Then dish and pot were abandoned and Holmes retrieved my report from where it had fallen. He tore it from its envelope and devoured its contents with greedy eyes.

“Laura Lyons?” he asked when he had finished.

I repeated my tale from the morning.

“A gap is filled, Watson, thank you. There is a close intimacy between the man Stapleton and Mrs. Lyons. They meet, they write. I was not aware of the impending divorce; she no doubt counts on marriage when her freedom is bought.”

I said, “Then it was Stapleton who intervened, thus removing the need for her to ask for money from Sir Charles for her divorce. That’s the reason she gives for not keeping the appointment on the night of Sir Charles’ death.”

Holmes nodded.

We sat opposite each other on two flat stones, and Watson, sensing the warming of temperatures, was content to wander back and forth between us, soliciting, and receiving, behind-the-ear scratches as we conferred.

Holmes raised my second report. “The Stapletons. You were very close to discovering the truth. What do you make of them?”

“They are a most singular pair.”

“But what do your observations tell you?” Holmes queried, leaning closer. “Come, Watson, think!”

I remember the way Stapleton charged at Sir Henry on the moor and the way the lady looked anxiously at him before she spoke at dinner. He behaved like a jealous lover, but she? She was a cowed wife.

Holmes nodded as my eyes widened.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“He gave himself away by mentioning the truth of his former life. There is no profession, including your own, my dear man, that is more documented than schoolmastering. That, plus his genuine passion for entomology, made him traceable.”

“But why the deception, Holmes?”

“Mrs. Stapleton is of more use to him as a free woman.”

“But he allowed Sir Henry to fall in love with her!”

“But he did not allow him to _make_ love to her. Sir Henry’s condition harms no one, save Sir Henry.”

“You’re certain Stapleton is our villain?”

“Who better than an entomologist to have a tarantula at hand? I have another confession: I did not bin the spider’s body after Mrs. Hudson’s thrashing. I took the pieces straight to that apprentice of Ward’s—“

“The taxidermist?”

“Yes, he owes us a favour after that he was exonerated in that smuggling business. He did a fine job, and I was able to identify the creature. Mrs. Stapleton is of Costa Rican origin, so is our eight-legged friend. Perhaps she gave it to her groom as a wedding gift.”

“Wait, Holmes, did you leave the spider—?“

“In your bedroom. Our rent is expensive enough, my dear man.”

I snorted. “So Stapleton is the one who dogged us in London?”

“So I read the riddle.”

“He seems so, I don’t know, weak-minded. Hardly a diabolical villain capable of this grand scheme. All he seems to care about are butterflies.”

“Your opinion may change when you learn that he bought a bloodhound-mastiff mix in London from Ross and Mangles.”

“Then there _is_ a hound!”

“Assuredly. Murder by superstition made real, Watson! It’s the cleverest we’ve seen yet, no?”

I shook my head slowly, then looked down into a pair of dark, doleful eyes. “He douses it with phosphorus.”

“Watson!” gasped Holmes.

“Our friend here,” I rubbed Watson’s furry head, “has had contact with the beast in his nocturnal ramblings, and the glowing mixture rubbed off on him last night. Clever way to make a spectre.”

“Indeed.”

“But why, Holmes? What is the purpose of it all? What does he gain?”

“That is the part that still eludes me.”

“And Sir Charles?”

“Stapleton released his glowing hound upon him and frightened him to death.”

“Holmes, how could he be certain the animal would have its intended effect? And if this dog is as vicious as a demon-hound, why were there no marks on Sir Charles’ body? Or footprints directly aside the body?”

“Either the beast was called off or it has no taste for carrion and refused to attack.”

“You mean that it recognised the mere instant that Sir Charles had died and turned and fled? Surely not!”

“My dear Waston—“

A agonised cry swept through the night followed by a deep, muttered rumble.

“The hound!” cried Holmes. “Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if we are too late!”

 


	17. Death on the Moor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are murderers and mistakes.

Holmes started running swiftly over the moor, and Watson and I followed at his heels. From somewhere immediately in front of us there came one last cry, and then a dull, heavy thud.

“He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late.”

“No!”

“I should not have held my hand, and you, Watson, should not have abandoned your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened, we’ll avenge him!”

A ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff overlooking a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was a man face downwards upon the ground, head doubled under him at a horrible angle. As we neared, the gleam of Holmes’s match shone upon the dark pool which widened slowly from a crushed skull—a skull attached to a body wearing a peculiar ruddy suit that Holmes and I both recognised.

“Sir Henry!” I cried and rushed towards the body.

Holmes struck a second match. I saw the beard.

“Not Sir Henry,” I said. “But wearing his clothes?”

Holmes bent over me. “Selden!”

Just then, there was another haunting cry. Our canine companion hopped up on a rock, threw his head back and answered with his own high-pitched howl. Then he sprang and, much like the victim on the previous night, went bounding across the rocks.

“Watson!” I shouted and followed after him.

I heard the word echoed behind me.

I chased after the furry shadow, fueled by my own concern for the animal as well as my sense of duty to Doctor Mortimer. He would be as devastated to lose his pup as Holmes and I were in the seconds we believed Sir Henry to be fallen.

Watson disappeared behind an outcropping of rocks. I called his name and, with a silent prayer, advanced into the darkness.

And found them.

Above all, I decided, the beast must not sense my trepidation or unease. I pushed fear far down inside me as I looked upon him, and my efforts were aided by Watson who skipped playfully between me and his glowing—and, yes, monstrously large—friend. The hound, in return, greeted Watson like the canine equivalent of an old soldier who happens upon a war-mate at a club.

Then they stopped and stared at me, blinking, in expressions of pure puzzlement at a two-legged interloper.

“Tell him I mean him no harm, Watson,” I said with much more calm than I felt.

And in that same moment, I remembered a long and tedious sea voyage I’d once taken with a sailor who fancied himself quite the expert in dogs and I fell to hands and knees and dropped my head.

And waited.

Watson danced around me and then stopped and sat back on his heels.

Then there it was.

A sniffing nose.

I remained perfectly still for the short eternity that the nose travelled up and down my body.  

“You don’t seem like a double-murderer,” I said in a low, soothing voice. “And you deserve better at the hands of your minder, though perhaps it is better that you don’t know it,” I added ruefully. “But I swear, by our mutual friend here, that I shan’t let the sins of the master be visited upon his servant. I believe you to be a noble beast.”

A tongue the size of man’s palm bathed the side of my face.

“Watson!”

“Go!” I urged the hound. “Return to your master. Come, Watson. Let’s return to ours.”

I got to my feet, and the hound vanished. Watson began to bark in answer to Holmes’s calls.

I drew out my handkerchief and wiped my brow. It came away glowing.

“Your friend has left his calling card, Watson,” I said as I clumsily attempted to rid my skin and clothes of luminescent droplets. “Come here.” I opened my arms and Watson leapt into them and together we made our way carefully towards the sound of our name.

* * *

“Where have you been?” charged Holmes.

“I could not let Watson become lost! Mortimer would never forgive me!”

“Rash to the point of folly, Watson. Well, while you two have been playing at mountain goats, our villain has returned to the scene of the crime.”

“Stapleton?”

“Oh, yes. He was just here. I am glad that he did not cross paths with you for the game would have certainly been up. Watson has had a brief second encounter with our murderer. A spot or two has transferred from his coat to yours.”

“Indeed. Holmes…”

If Holmes heard my words or my tone, he paid them no mind. “We’re at close grips at last,” he said as we walked across the moor towards Baskerville Hall. “What a nerve the fellow has! How he pulled himself together in the face of what must have been a paralyzing shock when he found that the wrong man had fallen a victim to his plot.”

“But Holmes…”

“I told you in London, Watson, and I tell you now again, that we have never had a foeman more worthy of our steel.”

“Indeed. Then why should we not have Stapleton arrested at once, Holmes?”

“We can prove nothing against him. There’s the devilish cunning of it! If he were acting through a human agent we could get some evidence, but if we were to drag this great dog to the light of day it would not help us in putting a rope around the neck of its master.”

I thought of the hound and fell a swell of sympathy. He did deserve better.

“We’ve not a shadow of a case—only surmise and conjecture. We should be laughed out of court if we came with such a story and such evidence,” continued Holmes.

“There is Sir Charles’s death,” I suggested.

“Found dead without a mark upon him. You and I know that he died of sheer fright, and we know also what frightened him. What signs are there of a hound? Where are the marks of its fangs? Of course, we know that a hound does not bite a dead body, and that Sir Charles was dead before ever the brute overtook him. But we have to prove all this, and we are not in a position to do it.”

Holmes was wrong. The hound was not a brute, no more than the pup in my arms was. And if he was a vicious as Holmes believed, I would not be alive.

“Well, then, Selden? You think that is Stapleton’s work, too,” I said.

“Again, there was no direct connection between the hound and the man’s death. We never saw the hound. We heard it; but we could not prove that it was running upon this man’s trail. There is a complete absence of motive. No, my dear fellow; we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have no case at present, and that it is worth our while to run any risk in order to establish one.”

A chill went up my spine. “Any risk, Holmes?”

“Any,” he vowed. “I have a plan.”

Lord, he was mad. Mad and wrong. Like a misguided hound. On a false scent.

We walked in silence to Baskerville gates.

“Are you coming up?” I asked.

“Yes, there is no reason for concealment now. But say nothing of the hound to Sir Henry. Let him think that Selden’s death was a result of anxiety and exposure, an accident provoked by madness. Thus, he will have a better nerve for the ordeal which he will have to undergo to-morrow.”

“Ordeal? Holmes, what are you planning?”

He shook off my query. “He’s to dine with the Stapletons, no?”

“And so am I.”

“No, he must go alone. We shall go back to London.”

“And leave him? No, Holmes!”

My protests fell as onto a stone statue.

“And now, if we are too late for dinner, I think that we are both ready for our suppers,” he said casually.

* * *

Sir Henry was pleased to see Holmes and welcomed him. I let Holmes relate the death of Selden in the manner that he saw fit. Sir Henry asked Holmes if he was any closer to catching the hound.

"I will muzzle him and chain him,” I winced at the glee in Holmes’s tone, “if you will give me your help."

"Whatever you tell me to do I will do," replied Sir Henry.

"Very good. I will ask you also to do it blindly, without always asking the reason."

My blood simmer, but I said nothing.

"Just as you like," said Sir Henry.

"If you will do this I think the chances are that our little problem will soon be solved. I have no doubt——"

Holmes’s attention was captured by the portraits on the wall. He asked Sir Henry to name the personages represented. Later, after we’d eaten and Sir Henry had retired for the night, Holmes brought me back to the portrait of Sir Hugo.

“Is it like any one you know?” he asked.

“There is something of Sir Henry about the jaw.”

“Just a suggestion, perhaps. But wait an instant!”

He stood upon a chair, and holding up the light in his left hand, he curved his right arm over the broad hat and around the long ringlets.

“It is our man, Watson!”

There was a vague resemblance to Stapleton, but nothing to warrant Holmes’s reaction.

He cackled. “We have him, Watson, and before to-morrow night he will be fluttering in our net!”

“You’re wrong, Holmes!”

He stared at me.

“It may be him, it may not,” I said. “And asking Sir Henry to commit blindly to your plan, without making him privy to the details and the dangers, is wrong. You are tearing after this theory and you are ignoring…” I touched the side of my face where the hound had licked it. “You are being rash to the point of folly, yours and others.”

And with that, I turned on my heels and went to bed, with Watson pattering behind me.


	18. Interlude: After Midnight Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Watson's attempts to sleep are thwarted. A bit of Watson/Sir Henry but mostly Holmes/Watson h/c fluff.

Watson was curled at the foot of my bed and well into a rabbit-chasing dream, when I made to blow out the candle.

_Knock, knock._

I donned my dressing gown, reached for my revolver, and cracked the door.

Sir Henry.

Two glasses. A bottle.

“Don’t shoot,” he said with a grin.

I waved him inside.

* * *

“Doctor Watson, I am not a stupid man, nor am I as forgetful a drunk as you might suppose.”

As he sat, he untied his dressing gown and let the sides fall apart. I’d be a frightful liar if I said the sight of his hair-covered chest did not stir me.

He poured our drinks. “If you tell me to follow Mister Holmes’s orders without question, I’ll do so, but as any man, I’d rather know what this is about.”

“Would you believe he hasn’t told me the plan?” I said bitterly and tapped his glass with mine. “Cheers.”

“But you know more than I do,” he said after we both sipped.

I thought of dark eyes and a curious lisp. I thought of a hound and a portrait.

“Things are not what they seem,” I said cryptically, then cringed. “But I think the matter should be resolved very soon and,” I threw back the rest of my drink, set my glass on the table, and covered his hand with mine, “I shall not abandon you, no matter how things may appear.”

Our eyes locked, and he smiled a rakish smile.

The clock chimed. The door opened. Watson lifted his head with an inquiring noise.

“Watson. Oh, terribly sorry. I was just returning your cigarette case. Good night.”

The door closed, and a thin silver rectangle on the table by the bottle was the only sign of Holmes’s presence.

Sir Henry picked up the case and turned it over. “Does he always return his own cigarette case at two o’clock in the morning?” he asked with one raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Yes,” I replied and poured us another drink.

* * *

 

_Knock, knock._

“Good Lord,” I muttered, throwing off the bedclothes for the second time.

I opened the door and waved him inside without looking up.

“What, Holmes?” I breathed.

Then my eyes met his, and I gasped.

He was wrecked.

“Watson,” his voice was a trembling whisper.

I leaned up and kissed him and kissed him again. I pressed myself to him and let him smell me, taste me, just as I had the hound. I wanted him to know that, despite our differences and our circumstances, I was friend.

That I was love.

He gave a sigh and began to kiss me in return. Sir Henry’s liquor was on my breath, but not Sir Henry himself and Holmes knew it.

I kissed down his neck, untied the sash of his dressing gown, and made to kneel.

 “No,” he said and pulled me back upright. He let his dressing gown fall to the floor and pushed my off my shoulders. Then he led us to the bed and crawled beneath the covers, drawing me with him. He placed my hand over his wildly beating heart and, thus tethered, turned to slot his back against my chest.

I smiled as our canine bedmate gave up his spot and settled on the other side of Holmes.

Then nestled between two Watsons, Holmes slept until dawn. 


	19. Fixing the Nets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which reinforcements are called.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having Mortimer at the scene of the Hound is a nod to the Granada version of the story. Their version of Mortimer is my favorite and his spaniel is the inspiration for my Watson the dog.

Holmes was afoot early in the morning. I saw him as I dressed coming up the drive.

“The nets are all in place, and the drag is about to begin. We’ll know before the day is out whether we have caught a big, lean-jawed pike or whether he has got through the meshes," he said.

“Have you been on the moor already?”

“I have sent a report from Grimpen to Princetown as to the death of Selden. I’ve also wired Lestrade. He will, no doubt, be down on the five-forty with an unsigned warrant.”

“What? Then a police officer hundreds of miles away knows more about your plan than I—or Sir Henry?”

“Watson,” he began in a placating tone, but he had no chance to finish as Sir Henry appeared.

“Good morning, Mister Holmes. You look like a general who is planning a battle with his chief of staff.”

“That is the exact situation. Watson was asking for orders.”

I snorted.

“And so do I,” said Sir Henry eagerly.

“You are engaged, as I understand, to dine with the Stapletons tonight.”

“I hope that you will come also.”

“I fear that Watson and I must go to London.”

I fought valiantly to contain my rage.

Sir Henry’s face perceptibly lengthened. He looked from me to Holmes.

“Please tell your friends that urgent business requires us to be in town, but that we hope to return to Devonshire very soon. Please give them that message.”

“If you insist.” Sir Henry’s brow clouded.

“I do,” said Holmes.

“When do you desire to go?”

“Immediately after breakfast. We will drive in to Coombe Tracey, but Watson will leave his things as a pledge that he will come back to you. Watson, send a note to Stapleton with your regrets.”

So now Holmes was speaking for my things as well as my person! I thought I had reached the limit of my patience when Holmes said,

“One more direction! I wish you to drive to Merripit House and send back your trap and let them know that you intend to walk home, across the moor. You may do so in safety as long as you keep to the straight path that leads from Merripit House to the Grimpen Road.”

Oh, this was madness! Holmes was setting a trap and using this man as bait, and though I knew the hound to be harmless, I could not say as much for his master.

“Doctor Watson?” asked Sir Henry.

I met his worried gaze. Then I stepped to him and took his hand in mine and squeezed it.

“Do as he says,” I whispered, then I marched out of the room, yelling, “WATSON!”

My friend came tripping down main staircase.

I was at the front door when Holmes overtook me.

“What are you doing, Watson? Breakfast, then we are going to Coombe Tracey.”

“No, I've no appetite.” I said coldly. “ _You_ are going to Coombe Tracey. I am going to go see a man about a dog. Five-forty, you say?”

* * *

I found Doctor Mortimer already glistening with sweat beneath a tent on the Long Down surrounded by bits of bone and piles of rock and excavated earth.

“Ah! My prodigal pup returns!” he cried and greeted Watson and I warmly. “News travels very fast in these parts. I have already heard of the death of Selden and the appearance of Mister Sherlock Holmes in our midst. Tell me, is he any closer to solving this puzzle of ours?”

“He is, and he believes it will be resolved tonight. That is why I am here. Doctor Mortimer, I imagine you do some animal doctoring on occasion.”

“Certainly. A stitch is a stitch, sometimes.”

“And perhaps have more insight than a city practitioner as to their mentalities?”

He shrugged. “What is your question, Doctor?”

“Have you ever known a normally good-tempered dog to turn savage suddenly?”

“If its master were threatened, for some breeds. Or, of course, in the case of disease or injury.” He showed me the back of his forearm and pointed out a curved line of scarred skin. “Watson’s work. When we first arrived, I employed less permanent means of ridding my excavation sites of rabbits.” His voice turned steely, and he produced a rifle. “If it’s one animal on this planet which I cannot abide it is a rabbit.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised by his vehemence.

“Rabbits burrow. Have you any idea what they can do to the proper dating of an excavation site in one night? Anyway, my hatred has grown over the years. In the beginning, I tried shooting them with tranquilizing darts and removing them. Then I tried traps of various designs. One day, a particularly exacting trap caught Watson in place of my intended victims and he took a fair bit out of me before I was able to free him—and mend his wounds. I don’t blame him, and he is as good natured as they come.”

Watson whined and licked at his master’s hand.

“Why do you ask, Doctor Watson?”

“I’ve seen the Hound of the Baskervilles with my own eyes.”

Doctor Mortimer’s jaw dropped.

“It is not a myth. It is real, flesh-and-fur dog. Huge, but normal-tempered. He and Watson are friends. They romp together at night.”

“Watson!”

Watson yipped and danced in a circle, tail wagging furiously.

“Sherlock Holmes is setting a trap, with Sir Henry as bait tonight, and I am very much afraid that the hound will get caught in it. I believe it to be innocent—or if not, then a reluctant accomplice—and I would hate to see an animal get punished for the sins of its keeper.”

“Who is its keeper?”

I waivered.

“I do not know for certain.”

“What would you have me do, Doctor?”

“I would have you and Watson and your tranquilizing gun meet the five-forty at the train station this evening and not breathe a word of this to anyone until then. No one.”

Doctor Mortimer's eyes drifted toward the moor, and when he spoke, it was with a determination and a resolve that I had heretofore not seen.

“On one condition,” he said with a grin.

“Name it!”

He held up a skull and put his hand atop it.

“Fingers along the parietal fissures.”

I laughed. “At gunpoint, if that’s what it takes.”

We shook hands and I bid farewell to Watson.

“Doctor?”

I turned.

“His and yours.”

* * *

“What is this, Watson?” asked Holmes when he spotted Doctor Mortimer and Watson approaching.

“You have your reinforcements. I have mine.”

“Watson…”

His words were drowned in the roar of the arrival of the London express.

Lestrade sprang from the first class carriage. “Anything good?” he asked after I introduced our companions and we had all five—for Watson would not be neglected in such matters—shaken hands.

“The biggest thing for years. We have two hours. Let’s get some dinner and exchange that London fog in your throat for a breath of pure Dartmoor night-air, Inspector.”

“Suits me. I’ve never been here,” he said, looking around.

“I don’t suppose you will forget your first visit,” said Holmes.

 

 

 

 


	20. The Hound of the Baskervilles (Part 1 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the trap is sprung.

As we started the walk to Merripit House, Holmes kept his eyes fixed on the landscape and asked,

“Are you armed?”

Lestrade replied, “As long as I have my trousers I have a hip-pocket, and as long as I have my hip-pocket I have something in it.”

“Good! Watson and I are also ready for emergencies.”

“As am I,” added Doctor Mortimer.

Holmes looked at his rough cloth sack and said, “Something more formidable than your walking stick, I presume.”

I said, “Doctor Mortimer comes specially armed at _my_ request.”

“Good,” said Holmes, with an expression that was an odd blend of curiosity and exasperation.

Lestrade said, “You’re mighty close about this affair, Mister Holmes. What’s the game now?”

It was then that I realised that perhaps Lestrade knew even less than I did. What a trusting lot we were!

“A waiting game, but eyes and brain, Lestrade. Eyes and brain.”

“Yeah, well, ‘eyes and brain’s all well and good, but it’d be better if I knew just what I was looking at and braining for, eh?”

“That’s Merritpit House,” I said. We were some two hundred yards from it.

“Here we wait,” said Holmes. “Tiptoes and whispers, gentlemen, please. The blinds are up. Watson, go see what they are doing —but for Heaven’s sake don’t let them know that they are watched!”

I stared at him. “Really, Holmes?” I saud dryly before I tiptoed down the path and crept along the shadow of a low wall.

I saw Stapleton and Sir Henry, smoking cigars, wine and coffee before them.

As I watched them, Stapleton rose and left the room, while Sir Henry filled his glass. I heard the creak of a door and the crisp sound of boots upon gravel. The naturalist pause at the door of an out-house in the corner of the orchard. A key turned in a lock, and as he passed in there was a curious scuffling noise from within. He was only a minute or so inside, and then I heard the key turn once more, and he passed me and re-entered the house. I saw him rejoin his guest, and I crept quietly back to where my companions were waiting to tell them what I had seen.

“You say, Watson, that the lady is not there?” Holmes asked when I had finished my report.

“No.”

“Where can she be, then, since there is no light in any other room except the kitchen?”

I shrugged.

A dense, white fog hung over the great Grimpen Mire, and it drifted slowly in our direction.

“In a half an hour, we shan’t be able to see anything,” said Doctor Mortimer.

“And just what are we meant to see?” asked Lestrade impatiently.

Holmes sighed and turned towards us. “When Sir Henry leaves, Stapleton will release a dog—an enormous, ferocious beast of an animal whom, with the scent of Sir Henry’s stolen boot and murderous instincts honed by its master, will attack Sir Henry and try to kill him. We will stop him before he succeeds. Stapleton is a secret heir to the Baskerville fortune. He killed Sir Charles and Selden, by accident, and he plans to do away with Sir Henry tonight.”

I exhaled. “Finally! The plan. Holmes, you’re wr—“

Holmes dropped on his knees and clapped his ear to the ground. “Thank Heaven, I think that I hear him coming.”

A sound of quick steps broke the silence. Sir Henry emerged into the clear, starlit night, walking swiftly along the path, but glancing continually over either shoulder.

“Hist!” cried Holmes, and I heard the sharp click of a cocking pistol. “Look out! It’s coming!”

I grabbed his sleeve. “Holmes, you’re wrong. I’ve not told you everything. I met the dog. He and Watson,” I gestured to the spaniel who sat close at Doctor Mortimer’s heels, “plays with it nightly. It is not ferocious, not at all. If Stapleton has murderous intent, he will do the deed himself. That dog is—“

Holmes’s pale and exultant face darkened at my words. He frowned. “You’ve met it, Watson? And survived? And you’ve said nothing? All this time?”

I was awash with regret until suddenly Holmes’s gaze started forward in a rigid, fixed stare and his lips parted.

And I knew, without following his line of sight, that the hound had emerged from the fog. Lestrade gave a yell of terror and Doctor Mortimer gasped. Only my canine namesake seemed beyond inertia. Watson gave a joyous bark and went racing after the glowing creature as it leapt down the track towards Sir Henry.

At Watson’s reaction, the four of us also sprang into action, following the two dogs at a thunderous boot-gallop.

“Holmes, no!” I cried when I saw his pistol drawn. “It is a playful pup!”

_BAM!_

I looked in horror from Lestrade’s raised gun behind me to the glowing head in front of me. The hound cried out in pain just as it neared Sir Henry, who had turned with his hands raised. Then the beast knocked Sir Henry to the ground. Watson was but two leaps from the tangle of man and animal.

“That is not a playful pup, Watson!” cried Holmes, cocking his pistol.

“NO!” Doctor Mortimer and I cried as one.

I launched myself at Holmes’s gun.

_BAM! BAM!_

I felt the burn across my temple, but could not spare a thought for Holmes’s horror. I turned and rushed towards Sir Henry.

“Henry!” I cried when I came upon the fallen man.  “Mortimer! Go!” I waved to the two dogs who were disappearing together into the fog.

“I’m all right,” Sir Henry said. His hands were searching his dark stained clothes. “The blood is not mine. It’s the beast’s. That was him, Watson? That was the hound! I swear if it wasn’t for that spaniel, he’d have torn my throat open. Wait, Doctor, you’re hit!”

“WATSON! WATSON!”

I left him and followed Doctor Mortimer’s screams into the white fog.

* * *

Doctor Mortimer was surely following behind Watson, so I followed behind Mortimer being as careful in the placement of my footing as my soldier’s mind would allow.

Suddenly, I heard a new voice.

“Hugo! Where are you? Hugo! Are you hurt? Oh, God! The bastards!”

I caught up with Doctor Mortimer just in time to see the glowing beast on one side of an embankment and Stapleton on the other. Stapleton rushed with open arms towards the dog.

And sank straight down into the mud.

Stapleton screamed. The hound howled loud and long, a plaintive, mournful cry, then sat back on its haunches, shifting nervously. Watson was whimpering and inching slowly towards his friend along the far edge of embankment.

“Shoot it, Mortimer! It will try to save him and may take Watson with him. Stapleton!” I looked around for a tree limb or vine to extend, but seeing nothing, finally removed my coat and creeping along the ground as far to the edge of the morass as I dared, flung it out towards him.

Stapleton looked toward me and the coat, but when the hound crumpled to the earth, he let out a string of curses. “You killed him, you miserable bastard! You killed my Hugo!”

“No, he’s just sleeping!” I cried. “Come on, grab hold of it! Save yourself!”

His expression changed, and a cold stab of fear pierce me. I knew that look from battlefields and sickbeds and other precipices of life.

“No, Jack, no! Think of Beryl! Where is she?”

He laughed a mirthless laugh. “Hawks and handsaws, I know them not. Only the _cyclopides_.”

Then, there was large belch from the earth.

And he was gone.

“Mortimer,” I whispered.

“Watson.”

When I was finally able to pry my gaze from the dark pit, I saw that he and Watson had reached the hound.

“Phosphorus,” he mused, drawing a suture closed.

I got to my feet.

“Show him the way, Watson,” ordered Doctor Mortimer. The dog dutifully—almost cheerfully—advanced toward me, turned, and led me back to his master. As I followed, I realised I must be as covered in mud and blood as my canine counterpart.

Watson held something between his teeth, then dropped it. I picked it up. It was a short, glowing baton. “What’s this?” I asked.

“It was in the hound—Hugo’s—jaws,” said Doctor Mortimer. “Maybe he was going to use it to try to save Stapleton. As you did. What a horrid end, even for a villain.”

Watson whined softly and made to lick at the hound’s wound but Mortimer shooed him away gently. “His wound looks far more serious than it is,” he said, glancing up. “I suspect that is the case with yours as well.”

My hand went to the side of my head. “You brought supplies,” I said, noting the razor and bloody bandages strewn about.

He nodded. “Country practitioner has to be prepared, no? All right. Your turn. And you might need a bit of this,” he pulled a small flask from his bag, “if we’re to get this leaden beast to the barrow I’ve stashed by the path.”

“Maybe we’ll have help,” I said as faint but frantic cries sounded in the distance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Eyes and brain, Lestrade,' is from the animated series _Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century_.


	21. The Hound of the Baskervilles (Part 2 of 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which stories are told.

“Watson!”

I did not realise that I was shivering until Holmes’s cloak was about me.

“’Tis a mere scratch,” I said, touching the bandage at my temple.

“Bloody fool!” he breathed as he drew the sides of the garment together.

I looked up into grey eyes shining wet. “Later,” I said, covering his cold hands with mine. “For now, the case.”

And in an instant, lover became sleuth once more.

“So that is the Hound of the Baskervilles,” said Sir Henry when he and Lestrade emerged from the fog.

The head of the sleeping beast lay in Doctor Mortimer’s lap and the dog Watson was curled up under his arm, slotted neatly between master and friend.

“He is not vicious, Sir Henry, I swear,” I said. “He would not have attacked you were it not for the bullet that grazed him.”

Sir Henry grunted and moved closer. “He as big as a pony.” He reached a hand out and touched the hound; then he looked at his fingers.

“And painted with mixture of phosphorus,” said Holmes. “A most ingenious method of creating a demon.”

“I gave him a dose of sedative that would kill poor Watson here thrice over, but I think he will wake in a couple of hours and be none the worse for it. His wounds are not grave,” said Doctor Mortimer. “There is nothing I can give for his wounded heart, I’m afraid. His master is gone.”

Holmes turned to me. “Stapleton is dead?”

“He came after his dog and fell into the mire.” I gestured to the scrap of my coat still visible atop the murky sludge. “I tried to pull him out, but he seemed to, I don’t know, give up. He let go and sank.”

A shudder ran through the group, and every eye seemed to be on the centre of the muddy pool.

“We found this in the middle of the path, if you can call it a path,” said Lestrade. He held up a boot and turned it so that the ‘Meyers, Toronto’ was easily readable on the inside leather.

“Stapleton needed a boot that had been worn to put the dog on Sir Henry’s scent. That’s why the new one would not do,” explained Holmes.

“Well, if this fellow Stapleton got eaten by the moor, then I’ve got nobody to arrest!” said Lestrade. “Thank you so very much for this breath of fresh country air, Mister Holmes. I think I prefer the city, which isn’t so greedy about gobbling its criminals!” He scowled at bubbling sludge.

“There’s still Beryl,” said Sir Henry. “Did Stapleton say what had become of her? She was not at dinner.”

I shook my head. “He did not confess. If he threw her in the mire, we may never find her.”

“But if he left her at the house, there may still be a chance. Let’s go!” cried Sir Henry.

“Watson will lead the way,” said Doctor Mortimer, getting to his feet. “Doctor.”

“Yes,” I replied, reaching for lower half of the hound.

“You mean we’re bringing that thing back?” said Lestrade. “I say leave it here with its kin, the witches and the goblins and whatever other creatures live in this forsaken place.”

“No,” I said firmly. “He’s not to blame for Stapleton’s crimes.”

“He can stay with me and Watson,” said Doctor Mortimer. “Until, or if, I can find a home for him.” He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Although how I am going to explain him to Mrs. Mortimer…”

“He can stay at Baskerville Hall,” said Sir Henry. “For if he’s truly the Hound of the Baskervilles, he should be with his people. But I’m not naïve, I want him kenneled until I am certain that he’s the gentle creature you say he is, Doctor.”

I smiled. “Thank you, Sir Henry.”

He smirked and replied in an exaggerated drawl. “I have to start practising my ‘noblesse oblige’ sometime, right? Now let’s find my lady.” In an instant, his swagger faded. “Or mourn her, if that’s the case.”

As I bent to lift one leg, Holmes pushed me aside. “The least I can do is carry your part of the dog,” he grumbled. I stepped back and, as our party returned from whence we’d come, gave one last look at the pit that had swallowed Stapleton.

And as I turned, my eye lit upon the short glowing baton.

It was a souvenir of a most singular case as well as a testament to a dog’s unconditional love for its master. The latter was a sentiment I knew well.

I drew it from the mud and followed the rest out the fog.

* * *

The front door of Merripit House was open, so we left the hound sleeping in the barrow with Watson standing watch and rushed inside. We hurried from room to room, and eventually found that one of the upper bedroom doors was locked.

“There’s someone in there!” said Lestrade. “I hear movement.”

Sir Henry struck the door just over the lock with the flat of his foot, and it flew open. We charged into the room.

And found her tied to a pillar.

In a minute, Sir Henry had unswathed her bonds and gage. The lady sank into his arms.

“The brute!” cried Holmes. “She has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.”

“Here,” said Doctor Mortimer, pulling the flask from his bag.

After a sip was forced between her lips, she looked into Sir Henry’s eyes and exclaimed, “Oh, you’re safe!”

Sir Henry smiled.

“And Jack?”

“Is dead,” I answered.

She gave long sigh of satisfaction.

“Thank God! Thank God! Oh, this villain! Oh, how he tortured and defiled me, body, mind, and soul. I have been his dupe and his tool. Did he fly to the old tin mine? It is on an island in the heart of the Mire. It is where he kept his hound. That was his refuge.”

Holmes held a lamp towards the window; the fog-bank that lay like white wool against it.

“He met his end in Grimpen Mire tonight,” he said.

She laughed and clapped her hands. Her eyes and teeth gleamed with fierce merriment.

“Oh, he found his way in, no doubt, but not out. How could he see the guiding wands tonight? We planted them together, he and I, to mark the pathway through the mire.”

“Henry,” she turned to him. “I have deceived you. I am not Jack’s sister, but he had such vicious control over me that I feared for my life if I did not do what he said, if I did not follow his commands and play the role he forced upon me. So many times I thought of fleeing, so many times I thought of telling you the whole truth and begging your forgiveness and pleading for your aide in escaping my horrible cage, but I was weak and cowed by so many years of ill treatment at his hands. I met him when I was very young. I did not understand the depth of his wickedness until it was far, far too late. I am so terribly sorry. Can you ever forgive me? My feelings for you were genuine, but I could not express them outwardly without inviting his wrath.”

“Of course, I forgive you, my dear. What an ordeal you’ve endured!” he replied.

“Stapleton used the dog to frighten Sir Charles to death,” said Holmes.

“Yes, he knew of Sir Charles’s superstitious nature and his weak heart. He tried several times to lure the old man out and finally succeeded on the night before Sir Charles was to return to London. He set the dog on him and, well, you know the rest.”

“You were the one who tried to warn Sir Henry in London,” said Holmes. “I recognise the scent of white jessamine on the note.”

“Yes, I knew of Jack’s terrible plan and wanted to thwart his efforts somehow. He imprisoned me in my room and went about his business, collecting your boot so that the hound would know your scent, scaring you with that horrible spider, thinking himself so very clever in taunting the great Sherlock Holmes.” She winced. “He was so angry when his plan failed and the convict Selden died instead of Sir Henry. Tonight he was determined to kill you, Henry. I tried to stop him, so he tied me up. He was mad with greed. He was determined to stop at nothing to eliminate everyone who stood between him and his fortune. He was, you see, the secret son of Roger Baskerville. Or so he told me. And so he believed.”

One question still needled me. “Assuming he’d been successful tonight and killed Sir Henry, how was he to claim the Baskerville fortune without causing suspicion and inquiry?”

“He spoke of several possibilities. One was to go abroad and establish his identity there and claim his inheritance without returning to England, another was to disguise himself and claim it in London, or to get some other miserable dupe to play the part. He was so wicked, and so diabolically clever, he would have found a way.”

She broke down into hysterical sobs.

“Well, I think that’s enough questions for one night,” said Sir Henry. “My poor dear, you must come and stay at Baskerville Hall. I cannot leave you here in this horrible place alone.” He offered her a handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes.

“I don’t know that I have the strength to make the journey, especially on a night like tonight.”

He turned. “Would you go and send something back for us?”

“Certainly,” said Holmes.

Lestrade grunted.

Sir Henry added, “You’re invited to stay at the Hall as well Inspector Lestrade. There are spirits and cigars to compensate you for an unsuccessful journey.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you, sir,” he said, looking somewhat appeased.

“I have a patient that requires my attention,” said Doctor Mortimer quietly. “Unless my services are required further.”

“No, thank you, Doctor,” said Sir Henry.

“We will all take our leave, then,” said Holmes. “You have all our sympathies, Madame, for all you have suffered.”

The three men headed towards the door, but my eyes lingered for a single moment longer on the couple.

I saw Sir Henry pull the lady closer to him. I saw her arms wrap around her. I saw her chin rest on his shoulder, her face tilted away from his.

And just before I turned, I saw the look in her eyes.

My chest clenched. My breath caught in my throat.

They were the eyes of a crone fortune-teller.


	22. Pawn Takes Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the dog has his day.

“She’s sleeping,” said Sir Henry as he closed the door to the study behind him. “Doctor Mortimer and Doctor Watson, I’m afraid that the future of our canine friend in the cellar is dim. On our return journey to Baskerville Hall, I broke the news to her that he had survived, both the gunfire and the mire. She was quite adamant, not just that he not be kept here, but that he not be at all, and I can see her view. He’s a terrible reminder of all that she has endured. Perhaps in a day or two, I might persuade her to place Hugo in your care, Doctor Mortimer, but for the moment, she wants him destroyed and I am loath to disregard the wishes of my future wife.”

“Perhaps she will change her mind,” said Doctor Mortimer, rising. “Well, it has been quite a night, and I must be returning home, gentlemen.”

“Yes,” said Lestrade, stubbing out his cigar. “Time to sleep. I’ve an early train to catch. Thank you, Sir Henry, for your hospitality.”

“Watson.”

Holmes’s voice cut through my reverie.

I grunted.

“What has you so pensive, my dear man?”

“Macbeth,” I replied, getting slowly to my feet. “Hawks and handsaws.”

Four voices replied as one.

“Hamlet.”

I started.

“The line is ‘I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw,’” said Holmes gently.

“Hamlet. I always liked that one,” said Lestrade.

“It’s a favourite of mine as well,” said Sir Henry. “And what being a displaced prince and all,” he added with a chuckle, “I suppose I should read it again.”

“I had a skull named Yorick once,” said Doctor Mortimer with a rueful grin.

I shook my head at them and smiled, then said, “Well, good night, gentleman. As you say, Doctor, it’s been quite a day.”

* * *

Darkness, save for the glow of the beast in the corner.

Silence, save for the snuffling and snorting of a slumbering ghost-hound.

Waiting, with the constant gnaw of idle, cigarette-less fingers.

Darkness.

Silence.

Waiting.

Then, finally, faint footfall and the light of a single taper.

I struck the match and said, “Drop it, _viuda_.”

She started.

“Doctor Watson.”

I let the match burn, releasing it when the flame bit my fingertips.

“Put the needle down, please,” I repeated.

Her dark eyes flashed.

“Your story only works if Hugo is a crazed predator, the demon hell-hound of legend and I am certain of two things: one, that he is not, and two, that whatever is in that hypodermic needle will make him one. Then Sir Henry will have no choice but to destroy him, and the last nagging piece of the puzzle—the one that doesn’t quite fit—will disappear and the Hound of the Baskervilles will be immortalised the way that you need it to be.”

“The dog needs to be destroyed,” she said. “It is a symbol of all I have suffered and all the pain that Jack brought forth.”

“Stapleton loved that dog so much that he risked his life for it. He didn’t starve it and he didn’t abuse it. As I see it, we have three deaths, but only one murder: the murder of Jack Stapleton by his wife.”

“You’re mad! He was a brute, he terrorised and tortured me! He had me under his complete control for years! He was a cunning and vicious cur of a man!”

“How long have you been thinking about killing your husband? He would never divorce you, killing him was the only way to secure your freedom, to start anew. The school fell into disaster, and when the two of you moved here, you hated him enough to refuse to live as his wife. When he learned of the legend, he bought a dog. Perhaps it amused him to walk about with it at night, fueling the peasants’ nightmares. He would not be the first man to have a dubious hobby. I know, I share rooms with one who has scores.”

“That dog is an instrument of evil!”

“No, he isn’t. And Stapleton fell in love with the dog—and, much, much worse, another woman. And it was second slight would not stand. As soon as you learned of his affair with Laura Lyons and his promises to her, his death warrant was signed.”

“Your wound has addled your head, Doctor.”

“Sir Charles’ death was an accident. Yes, Hugo frightened him to death, but Stapleton called him off. That’s why he didn’t attack Sir Charles or even come near him. That’s why Hugo’s footprints were some distance away. Hounds don’t feed on the dead. What nonsense! How could Hugo possibly realise that Sir Charles had died and stop his attack and turn away all in a sliver of an instant? Stapleton called him off and the dog obeyed. Why was Stapleton even there? Was it pure coincidence? Was he going to confront Sir Charles about Laura Lyons? Or reveal to Sir Charles that he was Roger Baskerville?”

“I’m not listening to this!” She turned. “You’re disgraceful.”

“But he wasn’t Roger Baskerville, was he? All those possibilities for his claiming the Baskerville fortune are ridiculous. If Sir Henry died under suspicious circumstances, there would surely be an investigation into his death and a reopening of the case of Sir Charles's and the new heir would be found and then all would be lost.”

“But you told him that he was Roger Baskerville. Why he believed you, I don’t know. Maybe he was an orphan and never knew his parents. Maybe he just hated his family and wished he was someone else badly enough. Every man thinks he’s a displaced prince, doesn’t he? Either way, you used the passing resemblance to Sir Hugo and Sir Charles’ fortuitous death to advance your plan.”

“It wasn’t Stapleton who dogged Sir Henry in London. If he was truly seeking the Baskerville fortune, the last thing he would do is call attention to himself. Why meet Sir Henry in London, when he could wait for him to come to Dartmoor?”

“No, it was you. You weren’t imprisoned in the hotel in London. How could you send the note to Sir Henry if you were? It was you who stole the boots, then returned the new one with the tarantula. You in the cab. Tall, piercing eyes, black beard. You didn’t say much, didn’t want your voice to give you away.”

“Lies! Why would I do such foolish things?”

“You wanted the attention of the great Sherlock Holmes. You knew of Doctor Mortimer’s appointment and that he would make Holmes aware of the curse, and you suspected, quite correctly, that the idea of a murderous hound would be too sweet a notion for a man like him to pass up. You did everything to distract attention from the true crime. And it worked. He immediately thought the death of Selden was the hound, even though he saw no evidence of Hugo anywhere near Selden. Just a howl in the distance.”

“Selden’s death only bolstered your plan, which began in earnest when Sir Henry fell in love with you. You knew that you had to act quickly. Here was your chance. A new life, a fresh start. Earlier today you left Sir Henry’s boot in the middle of the path so it might be found. You feigned an illness and excused yourself from dinner. As the evening ended, you released the hound. Then you told Stapleton that Hugo had escaped and was headed for the mire. Then you tied yourself up and waited for the cavalry.”

“You knew that Stapleton would go in search of Hugo. That’s why you had removed all the markers from the mire.” I produced the glowing stick. “All but one. And that’s how you murdered him. It was death by Grimpen Mire, which if you think about it, is just as clever as death by murderous hound. This is the one that Hugo tried to give Stapleton, to save him, in the end. Stapleton wasn’t an evil man, but he was a foolish one. I don’t think he realized just how foolish he was until the last seconds of his life. His last words were, ‘“Hawks and handsaws, I know them not. Only the _cyclopides._ _’_ He didn’t know a friend from an enemy. Or a wife from an executioner _._ ”

“You’re mad!”

“You have nothing to fear from me. There is no evidence, at least none that will withstand hard scrutiny, for anything I’ve said, and the version of the story that I will tell the reading public is the one you created, but I won’t let you kill this dog the way that you killed your husband.”

“How will you stop me? You’re not armed.”

“With a match,” said a voice in the darkness. “Really, Watson, you excel yourself. I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities.”

“Part of my charm, I suppose,” I replied, but Holmes’s voice was not the one I wanted to hear.

“Beryl.”

I exhaled.

“Henry, it’s all lies. He’s mad! I don’t know why he’s saying these horrible, horrible things, twisting everything! I am not what he says! Please believe me.”

“Doctor Watson.”

“I stand by what I have said, Sir Henry.”

“Mister Holmes.”

“I stand by my Watson.”

“Inspector.”

“I stand with the two gentlemen here.”

“No, Henry, no! They’re all wrong!”

Sir Henry sighed.

“Well, with all due respect, gentlemen, I stand by my future wife. I think your motives are pure, but your reasoning is faulty, Doctor.”

I nodded. “As you wish.”

Sir Henry emerged from the shadows and strode towards her with arms outstretched. "My dear, I am so sorry..."

Before he reached her, I charged.

“HUGO!”

I knocked the candle and the syringe out of her hands.

The room went dark.

There were shouts and screams, but I heard them far away and soft, like moths’ wings beating against a window pane.

And then we were running, the beast and I.

I led him through a long, dark tunnel and out into the cold night air.

Then he led me, that majestic glowing hound with the glowing stick I'd shoved between his massive jaws. He led me at a pace that had my lungs burning and my head throbbing within seconds.

He led me straight down the path and into the white blanket of fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This alternate ending is from Pierre Bayard's _Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles_ (2008). Bayard's explanation left a few gaps, which I tried to fill in. I don't necessarily recommend the book (the interesting bits are tiny and set amongst a lot of academic mumbo-jumbo and he makes a better case for why Holmes is wrong than why he's right).


	23. A Retrospection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the hound becomes legend and a rug is replaced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's taken this journey with me! I have enjoyed 21 versions of _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ this month and it was a lot of fun to become steeped in this tale. I hope you have enjoyed my version of it.

When I saw him veer from the path, I called out.

“Hugo.”

He stopped and trotted back to me.

“This is where we part, my friend.”

He whined and dropped the glowing baton at my feet.

“Go. Howl. Hunt. Roam the moor like the legend that you were meant to be. I daresay you wouldn’t have been content with a new master anyway. I know I wouldn’t. But be careful to never let her catch you or she will most certainly exact her revenge.”

He raised up, resting his front paws on my shoulders. I was so weak and winded from my chase that collapsed at once to the ground. And there, he happily bathed my face with his enormous tongue.

I laughed. “You’re a good boy, Hugo. Now, go! Mourn your fallen master and live on. With my pen, I shall do my best to ensure your immortality.”

And then, he was gone.

And I missed him at once.

* * *

“Holmes.”

A voice in the fog whispered back. “Watson.”

I smiled.

“Rare is the gun-dog that doesn’t know his master, but even rarer the master would not lay aside all for the welfare of his companion-friend,” I said.

“Very true.” He helped me to my feet and I slid straight into his warm embrace.

“I have no proof, Holmes,” I whispered into the wool of his cloak.

“No, and Sir Henry will not be swayed. She has won for now.”

I nodded. He kissed the top of my head.

“Thank you for lighting the way, my conductor. I had no notion of just how thick the fog that enveloped me was. I have said it before and I am certain to say it again: I am lost without you.”

“We are both lost in this treacherous fog, I am afraid,” I replied, looking about us.

“Nonsense,” he said. “I hear our guide now.”

We sprang apart at the familiar bark.

“Watson!” I cried.

* * *

Holmes, Lestrade, and I passed a few uncomfortable hours at Baskerville Hall until the wagonette arrived to take us to the train station. We saw no more of the lady and bid Sir Henry somber, but polite, farewells. Doctor Mortimer and Watson saw us off, and to Lestrade’s grand amusement, Holmes and I allowed the country practitioner all the liberties—fondling, measuring, and even sketching—he desired with regard to our skulls.

It was fortuitous that I slept most of our return journey to London for upon on arrival Holmes and I were launched directly into two affairs of the utmost importance, in the first of which Holmes exposed the atrocious conduct of Colonel Upwood in connection with the famous card scandal of the Nonpareil Club, while in the second he defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from the charge of murder which hung over her in connection with the death of her step-daughter, Mlle. Carére, the young lady who, as it will be remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New York. By day, these two cases did much to buttress Holmes’s shaken professional confidence, while at night he and I concentrated on fortifying our personal bond.

By November, I was keen for a genuine rest and perhaps Holmes was as well, for it took less effort than I anticipated to persuade him to accompany me on a golfing holiday in Cromer. There we met a young journalist, originally from Dartmoor, by the name of Robinson. Through our conversations in a private sitting room on those days when it was too windy for golf, we exchanged tales and, with his encouragement and suggestions, I decided to put pen to paper and compose what would become known to the reading public as _The Hound of the Baskervilles_.

The tale was only in its initial draft, however, one late November evening when I returned to 221B and found two pieces of post waiting for me. I glanced at the card attached to a large crate. It was unsigned and read simply, ‘With greatest regard.’ The letter was a short missive from Sir Henry Baskerville. He and his new bride were about to embark on a lengthy journey, beginning with a visit to his former home in Canada. He said he bore no ill feelings and wished Holmes and I the best.

I immediately eyed the crate with suspicion. I inspected the outside carefully, then got a tool and gently pried open the lid. I lifted it a mere sliver and peeked inside.

Something dark. Not wood. Fabric.

I heard Holmes’s footsteps.

“Good evening, Watson.”

“Be careful,” I warned. “Perhaps we should have it burned whole, just to be safe.”

“Burned!” he exclaimed.

“It’s from Sir Henry. Goodness knows what his new bride has slipped into it. Spiders. Snakes. Rare, untraceable poisons. They’re headed for Canada, by the way.”

“Sea voyage is unwise,” he said. “But no, this isn’t from Sir Henry, although it is related, I suppose. It’s from me.”

“You?”

He nodded. “A token of my esteem,” he said with a mischievous grin.

I threw off the lid.

“A bearskin rug!” I exclaimed as I ran my hand along soft fur. “You devil."

“I have a box for _Les Huguenots_ this evening. If you can be ready in half an hour, we can stop at Marcini’s for a little dinner on the way.”

“And afterwards we can arrange our new furnishing?”

“Just so, my dear man.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
